Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — MRS. SISULU

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the action of Her Majesty's Consul-General in Johannesburg in inviting Mrs. Sisulu to the official reception on the Queen's birthday was taken with his authority.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Robert Mathew): Guest lists for receptions given by Her Majesty's representatives on the occasion of The Queen's Birthday are not normally submitted to my right hon. Friend for approval. The guest list for the reception in question was therefore not submitted to him.

Mrs. Castle: Is the hon. Member aware that we on this side of the House warmly welcome the action taken by the Consul-General? Can he confirm the report that Mr. James Currie is now to leave South Africa, and would he say whether that has any connection with this event? Could he assure the House that the premature transfer of his deputy, Mr. Minford, has no connection with his multi-racial activities in South Africa, or with any protest by the South African Government against those activities?

Mr. Mathew: On the last part of the question, there is no connection whatever between the two. Mr. Minford's posting is in the normal work of the Foreign Office and has absolutely nothing to do with the case to which the hon. Lady referred. I cannot help her about the first part of the question, but if she cares to put down a Question I will attempt to answer it. I should

stress here that Mrs. Sisulu was asked in view of her own personal prominent position in the City of Johannesburg, where she is well known for her social and charitable work, and not in respect of her husband at all.

Oral Answers to Questions — CENTRAL TREATY ORGANISATION (FOREIGN SECRETARY'S SPEECH)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why he omitted from the speech he delivered on 28th April at the Ministerial meeting of the Central Treaty Organisation at Washington a passage in the prepared text calling on members of the United Nations to earmark national units of their armed forces for use in the peacekeeping operations of the United Nations.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have nothing to add to the Answer which my hon. Friend the Minister of State gave to the Question by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) on 4th May.

Mrs. Castle: Would the Foreign Secretary inform the House whether his inclusion of this proposal in the prepared text of his speech means that he is in agreement with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition about the policy which he proposes?

Mr. Butler: I would rather put it that the Leader of the Opposition is in agreement with me.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is not the first occasion on which he has done precisely this thing? After a much-heralded announcement that he was about to make a proposal on the lines indicated in the Question at the Disarmament Conference in February, he completely failed to mention it. Is not this carrying even his prevarication a little far?

Mr. Butler: When I spoke at the Disarmament Conference on 25th February, I made proper reference to this subject, and I shall be referring to it again tomorrow.

Mrs. Castle: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the Prime Minister is in agreement with his proposal?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. The Prime Minister and I are always in agreement.

Oral Answers to Questions — N.A.T.O. (MINISTERIAL COUNCIL MEETING)

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on his participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Ministerial Council meeting in The Hague.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I attended the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Ministerial spring meeting at The Hague from 12th May to 14th May. The proceedings of the North Atlantic Council are confidential, but I can say that the meeting gave a valuable opportunity to review the state of the Alliance and a number of current problems. I will, with permission, circulate the text of the communiqué in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the communiqué did not convey very much information, particularly on the important subject of the mixed-manned force? Could he say whether he informed the Foreign Ministers attending the Council meeting that the United Kingdom could not participate in the mixed-manned force and would object if the United States and Germany went ahead without the agreement of the rest of the Alliance?

Mr. Butler: The latter proposition was never mentioned at the N.A.T.O. meeting. As for the first part of the question, it has always been made quite clear that Great Britain would take part in the discussions of the multilateral force but had not made a decision as to whether to join that force.

Mr. Stonehouse: Can the Foreign Secretary say when a decision will be made and that, in the meantime, objections will be made to proposals as outlined in The Times this morning that Germany should be involved in a direct alliance with the United States in the development of this scheme?

Mr. Butler: When we get a little further with the discussions about the nature of the force we shall also have to take into consideration such developments as that to which the hon. Member referred.

The following is the communiqué:

The North Atlantic Council held its Spring Ministerial Meeting at The Hague from 12th to 14th May, 1964.

2. Ministers reviewed the international situation. They discussed the annual political appraisal of the state of the Alliance presented by the Secretary-General. They emphasised the rôle of the Atlantic Alliance as the indispensable guardian of security and peace, and thus as the prerequisite for social and economic progress.

3. Ministers reaffirmed their determination to achieve a genuine relaxation of tension in international relations. Although in recent months no serious crises have arisen in Europe, the U.S.S.R. has nevertheless continued to try to exert differing forms of pressure. The Communist countries continue their various efforts to extend their system to the whole world. The fundamental causes of tension in the world therefore persist.

14. In particular, no solution has yet been found for the problems of Germany and Berlin. The Council reaffirmed that a just and peaceful solution to the problem of Germany can be reached only on the basis of the right of self-determination, and agreed that every suitable opportunity should be taken to bring nearer to realisation the wish of the German people for reunification in freedom, and thereby ensure an enduring peace in Central Europe. This problem will continue to be examined. The Council also reaffirmed that the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany is the only German Government freely and legitimately constituted and therefore entitled to speak for Germany as the representative of the German people in international affairs. With regard to Berlin, the Alliance stands by the terms of its Declaration of 16th December, 1958.

5. Ministers noted with satisfaction that limited steps had recently been taken towards arresting the arms race. They reiterated their desire to bring about a settlement of the basic problems of disarmament, but noted that such a prospect would remain remote as long as the Soviet Union refused to accept effective measures of control and inspection.

6. In present circumstances, the memoers of the Alliance are in duty bound to improve their overall defensive capability. They will strengthen their unity by extending and deepening their political consultation. They will intensify their economic effort in order to raise living standards, whether of their own peoples or in developing countries.

7. Ministers, referring to the previous resolution concerning the study of the military and economic problems of the defence of the South-Eastern region of N.A.T.O., expressed the wish that the conclusions of this study be submitted at the next Ministerial Meeting.

8. Ministers expressed their concern at the situation in this region arising from the continuing disorders in Cyprus. They reaffirmed the full support of their Governments for the action decided on by the United Nations Organisation with a view to restoring law and order, and for the efforts of the mediator appointed by the United Nations to seek an agreed solution of the problem.

9. Ministers expressed their deep regret at the impending departure of Mr. Dirk U. Stikker, who had announced his intention of retiring from the Secretary-Generalship of the Organisation. In their tributes to Mr. Stikker, who was one of those who signed the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949, Ministers expressed their profound appreciation of his outstanding services to the Alliance.

10. The Council invited Signor Manlio Brosio, former Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister in the Italian Government and at present Italian Ambassador in Paris, to become Secretary-General of the Organisation in succession to Mr. Stikker as from 1st August, 1964. Signor Brosio has informed the Council of his acceptance of this invitation.

11. The next Ministerial Meeting will be held in Paris in December, 1964.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED STATES (DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on his recent discussions with the Government of the United States of America.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I took the opportunity of my visit to Washington for the annual Ministerial meeting of the Central Treaty Organisation to discuss a number of international problems with President Johnson and Mr. Rusk. These conversations were confidential.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that some of the requests he made to the United States were subject to public discussion and it is, therefore, important that he should comment upon them? What was the result of his request to the United States that American aid to Egypt should be cut off?

Mr. Butler: This was one of the exaggerations which were made of my conversations with the Secretary of State. No such request was ever put in those terms. What was said was that we should not adopt economic sanctions because we did not think that economic sanctions would be successful. What we did discuss was the need to correlate our policies.

Mr. Rankin: Did the Foreign Secretary discuss with President Johnson the continued spying and the breach of the Geneva Agreement which is taking place in regard to Laos? Did he make any mention of the bombing which has recently taken place there?

Mr. Butler: No, because nearly all these events have occurred since the occasion of my talk with the President.

Oral Answers to Questions — TAIWAN (CONSUL-GENERAL)

Mr. Warbey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to which authority the British Consul-General in Taiwan is accredited.

Mr. Mathew: Our senior consular officer in Taiwan holds the rank of Consul. As he does not have diplomatic status, no question of accreditation arises. His relations are only with the local provincial authorities, and he has no contact with the Central Nationalist authorities.

Mr. Warbey: I thank the Under-Secretary for that reply and correction. Will he make quite clear, not only to the House but also to the Chinese People's Republic and Government in Peking, that this country in no way recognises the Government of Chiang Kai-shek and that our Consul is there purely to promote commercial contacts? If he will do this, will it not assist the establishment of relations between Britain and China on the proper ambassadorial basis that they ought to have?

Mr. Mathew: Yes. I think I have made this position very plain by my original Answer.

Sir W. Teeling: Does not my hon. Friend think that, since a tremendous increase in trade is taking place between this country and Taiwan, it would be a very good idea if we could have somebody over here in the equivalent rank, whatever it may be, to our Consul in Taiwan?

Mr. Mathew: As we do not recognise any of the authorities in Taiwan as constituting a Government, Her Majesty's Government do not consider that it would be appropriate to accept consular officers appointed by those authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions — COUNCIL OF EUROPE (RECOMMENDATIONS)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has studied the Council of Europe Recommendation No. 389 on East-West relations including suggestions for joint scientific research with the Soviet bloc, particularly meteorological research; and whether he will approach the Russian Government to discover their interest in the joint construction of a freely-floating balloon circulating in the upper atmosphere and radioing information to earth about weather information over all parts of the globe.

Mr. Mathew: I have seen this Recommendation, which is at present under consideration by the Committee of Ministers' Deputies at Strasbourg. On the second part of my hon. Friend's Question, I think that, before we decide whether to approach the Soviet Government about this, it would be as well to study the discussions on the general proposal which have been taking place at the World Meteorological Organisation meeting at Geneva with the participation of Soviet delegates.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: I thank my hon. Friend for that information. When the matter comes back from the World Meteorological Organisation, would my hon. Friend recall that President Kennedy suggested that meteorological research was a fruitful sphere for joint research, that the Soviets have been particularly co-operative over meteorological matters, and that a balloon of this nature would be quite cheap to build and well within the compass of European nations? Would he, therefore, consider it sympathetically?

Mr. Mathew: Yes. I repeat that the Recommendation is still being considered by the Committee of Ministers' Deputies at Strasbourg. I will, however, say that we are wholly in sympathy with the spirit of the Recommendation as reflected in the Preamble.

Sir R. Russell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps have been taken by the Government to implement Recommendation 325 of the Council of Europe which urged Member Governments to ask the General

Assembly of the United Nations to insist on the holding of genuinely free elections in the Communist countries of Eastern Europe and to oppose charges of imperialism and colonialism levelled against them in the General Assembly by initiating debates on the Soviet colonialism practised in those countries.

Mr. Mathew: This Recommendation was brought to Her Majesty's Government's attention in 1962. We consider that the first part is impracticable. As far as the second part is concerned, the colonialism practised in areas which the Soviet Union has incorporated in her territory has been condemned by British spokesmen on many occasions.

Sir R. Russell: Does my hon. Friend agree that the other 16 member nations of the Council of Europe ought to support us much more than they do in resisting resolutions criticising affairs in Southern Rhodesia or other parts of the Commonwealth, and will he make representations that they do so when these issues come before the United Nations?

Mr. Mathew: If my hon. Friend is suggesting that we are treating the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe with less respect than other nations do, my Answer is "No, Sir". The Assembly's views are not binding upon member Governments of the Council of Europe but are taken into account when policy is formulated.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: In furtherance of the general aims of this Question, will my hon. Friend remind the House of when was the last occasion when members of the Committee of 100 and Labour supporters opposite went in for all-night vigils and protest marches about conditions in Eastern Europe?

Mr. Speaker: That is no part of the Minister's responsibility.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTER-GOVERNMENTAL COMMITTEE FOR EUROPEAN MIGRATION

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what contribution Her Majesty's Government have made in 1964 to the Inter-governmental Committee for European Migration to help the Committee to carry out


its programme for the movement of refugees from European countries for resettlement overseas.

Mr. Mathew: Her Majesty's Government have paid their subscription for 1964 to the Inter-governmental Committee for European Migration. This amounted to £68,607.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I understand that £68,000 represents 9 per cent. of the administrative budget of the I.C.E.M., but the Committee also has an operational budget to which last year we contributed £20,000 for the movement of refugees. The programme this year is 33,000 to be moved out of Europe, and if we make no contribution this year the work will be gravely imperilled.

Mr. Mathew: We do not normally contribute to the operational budget, but, as the right hon. Gentleman said, we made a contribution of £20,000 in the exceptional circumstances of 1963. The suggestion he made will certainly be considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — LIBYA (MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS)

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what progress is being made in the discussions with the Libyan Government concerning the future of British military establishments in that country; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. R. A. Butler: The discussions between Her Majesty's Government and the Libyan Government about the Anglo-Libyan Treaty were begun on 20th April and resumed on 6th June. The Libyan side was headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the British side by Her Majesty's Ambassador. The talks are continuing, and I am not in a position to make any statement on their substance at this stage.

Mr. Hamilton: Is it not the case that our ejection from Libya is imminent? If that is so, can the right hon. Gentleman explain why so many millions of £s have been poured into these bases when such a prospect was highly likely?

Mr. Butler: No; I would not accept the conclusion which the hon. Gentleman draws. Talks are going forward in a

constructive spirit and are likely to take some time. I hope that the fundamental wishes of Her Majesty's Government may be met.

Mr. P. Williams: Does the existence of these bases make any cash contribution to the Libyan economy?

Mr. Butler: There is no doubt—I am sure that the Libyan Government would agree with this—that these bases have been of considerable value to the economy of the country.

Oral Answers to Questions — CONGO (ARMY TRANSPORT)

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what reply Her Majesty's Government have sent to the request of the Government of the Congo for assistance in the supply of transport for the Congolese National Army.

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Peter Thomas): In response to an appeal made by the Commander-in-Chief of the Congolese Army, General Mobutu, during his recent visit to the United Kingdom, and in support of the Congolese Government, Her Majesty's Government have agreed to provide spare parts to enable Congolese Army vehicles of British manufacture to be put back into service, and to supply three or four Landrovers and two or three river launches required in the maintenance of internal security. The estimated cost of this equipment will be about £30,000. Parliament will in due course be asked to vote the necessary amount by means of a Supplementary Estimate. In the meantime, an advance will be obtained from the Civil Contingencies Fund as required.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I thank the Minister of State for that reply. Will he consider that the British Commonwealth has great interests in the maintenance of peace and order in the Congo? Are Her Majesty's Government considering any special measures to help the Government of the Congo to maintain their armed forces in good order after the United Nations forces are withdrawn at the end of the month?

Mr. Thomas: The Congolese Army is assisted by an international training programme. In November, 1963, Her Majesty's Government made available


a grant of 2 million dollars as a contribution to international aid to the Congo, and we have also agreed to contribute a further ½ million dollars towards the cost of United Nations civilian operations continuing in the Congo during 1964.

Mr. P. Williams: Are the contributions in dollars or £s sterling? Do we have to pay across the exchange?

Mr. Thomas: I cannot say that without notice. I appreciate that one should talk in terms of £s as much as possible, but those were the figures I was given.

Oral Answers to Questions — CENTRAL EUROPE (FRONTIERS)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will propose to the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Council the making of a joint declaration renouncing territorial claims and demands for frontier changes in Central Europe.

Mr. P. Thomas: No, Sir.

Mr. Swingler: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall the speech of Dr. Seebohm, the Federal Minister of Transport in West Germany, in May, in which he claimed that the Sudetenland is a part of Germany and also asserted that the Munich Agreement was still valid? As Dr. Seebohm still remains a Minister in the Federal Government of West Germany, would it not be wise, if the Western Powers wish to find a basis for negotiations about the future of Central Europe, for them to repudiate this kind of statement and make quite clear that they are not considering territorial claims?

Mr. Thomas: The hon. Gentleman will have seen that, in a speech in New York on 11th June, Chancellor Erhardt repeated that the Federal Government had no territorial claims on Czechoslovakia.

Oral Answers to Questions — MIDDLE EAST (BALANCE OF ARMS)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what extent it remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government to maintain a balance of arms in the Middle East as

provided is the Tripartite Declaration of 1951.

Mr. Prentice: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is still the policy of Her Majesty's Government to work for a balance of arms in the Middle East, in accordance with the Tripartite Declaration of 1951; and what active steps are being taken to promote this policy.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Her Majesty's Government continue to attach the greatest importance to the maintenance of peace and stability in the Middle East and to the avoidance of an arms race between the States of the area. We are guided by these objectives in any decisions we take.

Mr. Henderson: Is it not a fact that the Government of Egypt have received large quantities of armaments—warships, submarines, fighter and bomber planes, and tanks—from the Governments of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia? Has not the right hon. Gentleman himself indicated that they are engaged in Egypt on the development and production of rocketry? Are we to understand that the Government of Israel are entitled to come here and obtain adequate arms from this country, or the United States, or is it still the policy of the Government to try to secure agreement with the Soviet Union to stop this supply of arms, and this arms race?

Mr. Butler: We wish to avoid an arms race. We cannot stop shipments to Egypt, much as we may regret them. As for the question of arms for Israel, we are guided by the objectives that I have stated, namely, that there should not be an arms race in the area.

Mr. Prentice: In view of everything that has happened since 1951, is it not time to seek the co-operation of other countries in obtaining a wider and more up-to-date version of this doctrine of keeping arms out of the Middle East? Ought not this to include discussions on measures to prevent nationals from countries outside the Middle East going there and giving technical advice on the development of rocketry, which, according to the reports, has been done, in that advice has been given to the Egyptians by German scientists?

Mr. Butler: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already indicated in


a Reply from this Box that we have no indication that atomic weapons are being accepted or received by Egypt. The Declaration of 1950 still stands. As the late Lord Privy Seal said, it has not been retracted.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: To what extent do other signatories to the Tripartite Declaration regard it as in full force and valid? Are we the only ones to do so?

Mr. Butler: There has not been a great deal of activity under this Declaration, but it remains in force.

Mr. Gordon Walker: As the import of arms into this part of the world is extremely dangerous, are the Government having, or will they have, discussions with the Soviet Union in an attempt to get some kind of agreement about the balance of arms coming into this whole area?

Mr. Butler: I would not exclude the possibility of talks with the Soviet Union on this subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — CENTRAL EUROPE (NUCLEAR WEAPONS)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the latest proposals received from the Polish Government for a freeze of nuclear weapons in Central Europe.

Mr. P. Thomas: We examined the proposals very carefully with our North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies and we all agreed that they were unacceptable as they stand for a number of reasons. The Polish Government have been informed accordingly.

Mr. Henderson: What are the objections of Her Majesty's Government to these proposals, in view of the fact that Mr. Gomulka has made it quite clear that they postulate adequate and effective verification of any agreement that may be reached?

Mr. Thomas: The objections were on political, military and technical grounds. We have told the Polish Government that we shall carefully examine any further proposals that they may care to make, and have indicated our readi-

ness to have frank discussions of the problems involved in measures of this kind.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Rather than reject these proposals, would it not have been wiser to have made some suggestions for adaptations of the scheme, such as the extension of the area proposed in the East and the West, and the application of the scheme to missiles as well as warheads? Is it right that this important matter should be rejected in this rather brusque manner?

Mr. Thomas: We did not reject the proposal. We merely rejected it as it stood, and we gave the reasons for our objections. We said that we were quite happy to carry on discussions on this subject. Extension to a wider area might modify some of the military disadvantages of the plan and some elements of discrimination, and we have indicated that fact to the Polish Government. But if the area were wider we would have the added problem of greater verification, and that would be much more difficult. As for the question of applying the proposals to nuclear delivery vehicles instead of warheads, that is a technical matter. It would be easier to identify nuclear delivery vehicles than to identify warheads, but the inclusion of nuclear delivery vehicles in the Polish proposals would not deal with the military and political objections raised.

Mr. Kershaw: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that to the extent that the Gomulka proposals are likely to introduce an air of uncertainty into the mid-European situation, it is likely to be more and not less dangerous than it is at the moment?

Mr. Thomas: There are many objections—which we have put in detail to the Polish Government—to these suggestions.

Oral Answers to Questions — ANGLO-GERMAN RELATIONS

Mr. Oram: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on recent developments in Anglo-German relations.

Mr. Mathew: Our relations with the Federal Republic of Germany are excellent. The recent announcement that Her Majesty The Queen intends to pay


a State Visit next year has been warmly welcomed in the Federal Republic. A successful "British Week" was held in Düsseldorf at the end of May. An agreement providing for the compensation of British victims of Nazi persecution was signed on 9th June.

Mr. Oram: The House will welcome the favourable developments to which the hon. Member has referred, but can he say what effect the speech of Herr Seebohm, to which my hon. Friend referred, has had on Anglo-German relations? What was the reaction of Her Majesty's Government to that speech? Was any protest delivered about its objectionable character?

Mr. Mathew: I should require notice of that question.

Mr. Warbey: In such discussions and exchanges on the matter, will Her Majesty's Government suggest to the German Government that any participation in a multilateral nuclear force would be a breach of the spirit and intentions of the Paris Agreement and the Brussels Treaty, and would relieve us of our obligation to protect Germany against armed attack?

Mr. Mathew: No, Sir. Her Majesty's Government's position on the question of a mulilateral nuclear force and the non-dissemination of nuclear power has been made clear on a number of occasions.

Mr. Swingler: Do Her Majesty's Government agree with Chancellor Erhardt in repudiating the views of his Minister of Transport?

Mr. Mathew: This is surely a matter for the German Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARAB COUNTRIES (BRITISH UNDERTAKINGS)

Mr. D. Foot: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will publish all the documents in the possession of his Department relating to British undertakings to the Arabs during and after the First World War on the subject of the future independence of Arab countries, including the instructions on which Sir Henry McMahon based his letter of 24th October, 1915, to Sherif Husain.

Mr. Mathew: The correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sherif Husain in 1915–16 has been published in full, together with other relevant material from the period up to 1918. The instructions on which Sir Henry McMahon based his letter of 24th October, 1915, and other relevant documents for the period of the First World War, will become available to the public in the fairly near future in accordance with the Public Records Act, 1958. Meanwhile, it is not proposed to publish further documents for the wartime period. A large number of relevant documents from the period since 1919 have already been published in the series entitled "Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939". Further material will be published in this series in due course.

Mr. Foot: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware, and was it not quite apparent in the recent correspondence in The Times that this is still a matter of acute controversy? Is there any valid reason why we should have to wait the full 50 years before all the facts are made known?

Mr. Mathew: As I say, these documents will be made available for public use in the fairly near future and there seems no sufficient reason to make an exception in this case to the rules stated in the Act.

Mr. Brockway: Will these documents include the promises simultaneously made to the Arabs and to the Jews about the position of the territory of Palestine? Ought we not to know all these pledges in view of the grave situation that has arisen in the Middle East ever since?

Mr. Mathew: The hon. Gentleman really must wait until the full documents are available before he pronounces on the matter. The Times article to which reference has been made mentioned a memorandum which expressed the personal views of its author. As the writer of The Times article himself explained, the department concerned was not a policy-making department in the sense that it was representing Government policy at the time. This was only one of a number of inter-departmental documents that were available at the time.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: As I understand the hon. Gentleman, some of the documents will be published, under the 50-year rule, in 1965. Will it not be most misleading and most inconvenient to everyone if all the documents up to 1921 or 1922 are not published together?

Mr. Mathew: I repeat that this document is one of a very large number of documents on the subject which were prepared for internal use and which will become available under the 1958 Act in the near future.

Oral Answers to Questions — NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government regarding the details of President Johnson's proposal at Geneva to freeze strategic nuclear delivery vehicles.

Mr. P. Thomas: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the Answer which I gave to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson) on 8th June.

Mr. Allaun: How does the right hon. Gentleman square that Answer, which was favourable to the President's proposal, with the British Government's insistence on going ahead with Polaris? Is it the British Government's position that they want to freeze the start until after the Polaris programme is completed, and is not that an invitation to every other Government to use the same argument and thus make nonsense of the proposal?

Mr. Thomas: I do not think that there is any difficulty at all. The Americans have assured us that their proposals will not in any way interfere with their fulfilment of the Nassau Agreement.

Mr. Allaun: Is not that exactly what I say—that the Minister says that we will postpone the agreement until we have got our oar in first? But is not that an open encouragement to every other Government to do the same, so that there will be no agreement on this proposal?

Mr. Thomas: No, Sir. With respect, I do not think that the hon. Gentleman understands the position. It is very complicated, and I think that he would find it helpful if he read the American

representative's speech to the Disarmament Conference, when he expounded what the American proposals are.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDONESIA AND MALAYSIA

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of British commitments and interests in South-East Asia, what discussions he had with the Governments of Japan and the Philippines on a settlement of the conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I gave details of my discussions with the Government of Japan in reply to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) on 11th May. After leaving Tokyo, I had discussions with President Macapagal of the Philippines, who has since made an important contribution to the agreement, announced on 30th May, for a further meeting of representatives of the Malaysian, Indonesian and Philippine Governments. I hope there will be opportunity to take this further in the debate tomorrow.

Mr. Brockway: Is the Foreign Secretary aware of how much we welcome the negotiations which have led to the calling of a conference of the Foreign Ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines? And can we have an assurance from Her Majesty's Government that, despite all the difficulties, which one recognises are frustrating, in view of the explosive situation throughout South-East Asia, the utmost efforts will be made to secure an agreement between these three countries?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. As I explained when I was out there, and as I am explaining to the House now, we certainly hope that this conference, not only of the Foreign Ministers but also what is known as the summit, will be successful. We cannot say more today as we do not know what the latest news is. I sincerely hope that we shall be able to find some easement of the situation in South-East Asia, but it must be on the basis of recognising the independence and integrity of Malaysia.

Miss Vickers: As the British have a great deal of property and interests in Indonesia, may I ask whether, during these discussions, Tunku Abdul Rahman


will draw attention to that fact, and to the fact that we are honouring our obligations to him, in order to see whether we cannot get some of those things safeguarded?

Mr. Butler: I think that Tunku Abdul Rahman is aware of the situation, and I certainly think that my hon. Friend's question will make him more aware of it.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS COUNTRIES (MILITARY OBLIGATIONS)

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many treaties involve military obligations to overseas countries; and what are the countries to which such treaties apply.

Mr. P. Thomas: The United Kingdom is party to a number of multilateral treaties involving military obligations to other members. The principal ones are the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Central Treaty Organisation and the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation. The United Kingdom also has commitments to other countries under various bilateral treaties. Since the list of treaties and of the countries to which they apply is rather long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the reason why the right hon. Gentleman is unable to furnish me with details of the military obligations undertaken by the United Kingdom the fact that it would take a long time? Can he say whether our military capabilities match up to those obligations? Woud it not be wiser—in future, at any rate—before entering into obligations which involve military action at some stage, to consider whether we are able to fulfil our obligations? May I take this opportunity of congratulating the right hon. Gentleman, and of assuring him that his appointment does not mean that he will have any privileges from this side from anybody?

Mr. Thomas: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I certainly accept every word of the last part of his supplementary question. My reason for not giving the full list is that it is long, as he will see when it appears in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I can assure the right hon.

Gentleman that our military capabilities will match up to our obligations.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Can my right hon. Friend say whether, up to date, Britain has fallen down on any of her obligations?

Mr. Thomas: No, Sir. I think that it is right to say that over the last few months we have shown full well that we can match up with our treaty obligations.

Mr. Benn: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the Tripartite Declaration is one of the treaties that will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT?

Mr. Thomas: No, Sir. I do not think that it is.

Following is the information:

LIST OF COUNTRIES AND TREATIES WHICH
APPLY TO THEM

Canada

North Atlantic Treaty of 1949.

Malaysia
Malaysia Agreement of 1963.

Pakistan
South-East Asia Collective Defence Treaty of 1957 and Pact of Mutual Cooperation of 1955 (C.E.N.T.O.).

Cyprus
Treaty of Establishment and Treaty of Guarantee of 1960.

Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands
Brussels Treaty of 1948 and North Atlantic Treaty.

Denmark, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Norway

North Atlantic Treaty.

France

Treaty of Dunkirk of 1947, Brussels Treaty, North Atlantic Treaty.

Portugal

North Atlantic Treaty and Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, dating from the 14th century.

Iran

Pact of Mutual Cooperation (C.E.N.T.O.).

Libya

Treaty of 1953.

Philippines, Thailand

South-East Asia Collective Defence Treaty.

Turkey

North Atlantic Treaty, Pact of Mutual Cooperation (C.E.N.T.O.).

United States of America

North Atlantic Treaty.

Bahrain, Qatar and the Trucial Sheikdoms

These States are in special treaty relations with the United Kingdom, under various treaties.

Australia, New Zealand

South-East Asia Collective Defence Treaty.

Oral Answers to Questions — GENOCIDE CONVENTION

Sir B. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many countries have now acceded to or ratified the Genocide Convention of the United Nations.

Mr. P. Thomas: Of the 43 States which originally signed the Genocide Convention, 38 have since ratified it. There have also been 30 accessions to the Convention.

Sir B. Janner: Can the right hon Gentleman let the House know why, at this stage, Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to reconsider their decision not to accede to this Convention? Is he aware that in the Dering case, and in numerous cases taking place in Germany at present, acts of indescribable horror have been shown to have been perpetrated by Nazis? Is he also aware that the Convention itself provides that a person or persons who incite to acts of genocide or who are accessories before the fact, can be charged, but that our present laws make no adequate provision to cope with that situation at all? What does the right hon. Gentleman intend to do about it? Will he now accede to the Convention?

Mr. Thomas: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we went into this in great detail in an Adjournment debate in which I took part with him on 23rd July last. As I told him then, we accept the spirit of the Convention wholeheartedly and support its objectives. We have considered the matter further since then, and I am afraid that we are still not convinced that we should reconsider our decision not to accede.

Sir B. Janner: Will the right hon Gentleman agree to look at the matter again? Does not he realise that in our own country some people are advocating the commission, either directly or indirectly, of acts of genocide and that the courts themselves apparently cannot deal with the matter? Will he see to it that this Convention is accepted?

Mr. Thomas: I accept the strength of the arguments which the hon. Gentleman has frequently deployed on this, and I certainly accept the strength of his feelings, but, as he knows, the difficulty arises

on Article 7 of the Convention. There are real difficulties, as I explained to him in the Adjournment debate.

Oral Answers to Questions — ASWAN DAM (OPENING CEREMONY)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by whom Her Majesty's Government were represented at the opening of the Aswan dam.

Mr. P. Thomas: Her Majesty's Ambassador.

Mr. Hughes: Did Her Majesty's Ambassador attend in sackcloth and ashes, and has he sent any official report about the celebrations? Further, is it not quite obvious now that Her Majesty's Government's policy at Suez, far from helping to destroy Communism in that part of the world, led to Mr. Khrushchev opening the Aswan dam?

Mr. Thomas: Her Majesty's Ambassador went there with great interest and he was delighted to accept the invitation, which was sent to him as it was sent to all the other heads of diplomatic missions in Cairo.

Oral Answers to Questions — TEST BAN TREATY

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what proposals he has for celebrating the first anniversary of the signing of the nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Mr. P. Thomas: The best way of celebrating the anniversary of the nuclear Test Ban Treaty would be to sign some further agreement in the field of disarmament, and Her Majesty's Government are working to this end.

Mr. Hughes: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on that Reply, which I might have written myself, but is he aware that, when the Prime Minister went to Moscow to sign this treaty, he said that his favourite animal was the tortoise? Is the tortoise still at the Foreign Office, or has it been replaced by the snail and the slug so that there has been very little progress?

Mr. Thomas: There has been progress since the signing of the Test Ban Treaty.


We are anxious to move ahead as rapidly as possible, but we want at the same time to move ahead as safely as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Mr. MacDermot: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government will now accept the right of individual application to, and the compulsory jurisdiction of, the European Court of Human Rights.

Mr. P. Thomas: No, Sir. I should add that the right of individual petition, for which the European Human Rights Convention makes optional provision, is to the European Commission on Human Rights, not to the Court.

Mr. MacDermot: First, as regards the compulsory jurisdiction point, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that there is no objection in principle to our agreeing to submit ourselves to the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court, as, indeed, we do in part to the Court at The Hague? Further, is it not correct that what has been holding back Her Majesty's Government until now on this matter has been the fact that we have extended the Convention to about 42 overseas territories with a population of over 97 million, but is it not right that by next October there will be left fewer than 3½ million people in those territories, the rest having attained independence? In view of this, cannot Her Majesty's Government reconsider this question, as our acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction would greatly enhance the authority of the Court?

Mr. Thomas: I agree with the hon and learned Gentleman that there is no objection in principle to our accepting the jurisdiction of the Court. While we do not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court, we could accept the jurisdiction of the Court in certain ad hoc cases, should we consider them to be suitable. Most of the cases which have come before the Court are, we think, cases which can be dealt with by a body such as is provided for in the Convention, that is, the Committee of Ministers. As to individual petitions to the Commission, we do not accept

this, because we feel that it is open to abuse for political purposes.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Will my right hon. Friend take extreme care about any step which might undermine the authority of the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom, which is the envy of many countries of the world?

Mr. Thomas: Yes. That is a matter for consideration also.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPE (UNITED KINGDOM FORCES)

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what extent it remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government to maintain four divisions and the Tactical Air Force on the European Continent in accordance with the terms of the Brussels Treaty.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Under the Revised Brussels Treaty, as amended by decisions of the Western European Union Council in March, 1957, and January, 1958, the United Kingdom is committed to maintain on the mainland of Europe ground forces of 55,000 men and the Second Tactical Air Force.
As the House is aware, our extensive commitments in other overseas theatres have made it impossible to bring the British Army of the Rhine up to its full strength as quickly as we should wish. But, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence for the Army stated in reply to a Question from the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) on 11th March, it remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government to reach a strength of 55,000 men as soon as we can.

Mr. Grimond: May I take it, then, that Her Majesty's Government have no intention of suggesting to our allies in N.A.T.O. or through W.E.U. that there might be a reduction of our commitments in Germany and Europe?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir; that is correct.

Mr. P. Williams: Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that, whatever this commitment may be, it will not be our prime call if we find that we need troops for the Far East and places such as Malaysia?

Mr. Butler: I have said already that it is our hope to raise our strength to


55,000, but, if there were exceptional circumstances, I am sure that our allies would understand.

Mr. J. Hynd: How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile this Answer with the one given by his right hon. Friend the Minister of State to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) in which he said that the present establishment enables us to meet all our commitments? The right hon. Gentleman has just said that we are not, in fact, meeting one of these commitments and we might, in the future, have to reduce even what we have done.

Mr. Butler: I think it is very laudable, in view of the many world calls upon us, that we are meeting our commitments as we are.

Mr. Shinwell: Why do the Government keep up the pretence of having four divisions in Germany, or any hope that we shall ever have four divisions in Germany? Is it not a fact that we have only two divisions there? Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that, in an interview the other day with the French Foreign Minister, he said that the French had two divisions in Germany—whether that be true or not—which was equal to the number we have in Germany?

Mr. Butler: There is no question of pretence. If the right hon. Gentleman wants the exact number of our troops in Germany, I shall want notice of that question; but my answer prevails, that we hope to reach the total of 55,000.

Oral Answers to Questions — HUNGARY (DEBTS)

Sir W. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what reply he has received from the Hungarian Government concerning his recent reminder about the settlement of the prewar Hungarian debts; and what further steps he proposes to take concerning this matter.

Mr. Mathew: The Hungarian Government have not yet sent a formal reply to our reminder about pre-war Hungarian bonds. But it is only six weeks since we last spoke to the

Hungarians. I think we should give them a little longer.

Sir W. Teeling: Are we working in this matter with the Americans? If not, will we consider doing so? I gather that the Rumanians are about to settle and that the Russians are discussing the Baltic bonds. Is it not high time that the Hungarians hurried up?

Mr. Mathew: I have no doubt that the Hungarians are giving serious thought to the matter, and I do not think that there is any reason for us to take further action at the moment.

Oral Answers to Questions — SPAIN (SUPPLY OF ARMS)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy on the supply of arms to Spain.

Mr. M. Foot: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what conditions are imposed in the interests of foreign policy on the sale of arms to Spain; and what recent alteration he has made in these conditions.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Her Majesty's Government's policy with regard to the supply of arms to Spain is the same as that which we adopt towards other States, namely, that every application is carefully examined in the light of the political, strategic and economic implications of the individual case. We also take into consideration whether such arms are likely to be re-exported or used for aggression against, or the subversion of, other countries.

Mr. Swingler: Can we take it that the Foreign Secretary is not in favour of promoting trade in arms purely for commercial purposes? Does it follow, therefore, that approval to the supply of arms to Spain implies a measure of political consent and support to the régime there? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that such a measure would be utterly repugnant to the majority of British people?

Mr. Butler: No firm decision to build ships of British design has so far been communicated to us by the Spanish Government, but the preliminaries have all been gone through. There is no political


question in this. What is at stake is that, under supreme competition from other people, we have the chance of fulfilling a very good order, and I very much hope that we would.

Mr. Foot: Does the Minister's reply mean that he has no objection whatever to selling arms to Fascist countries? Will he recall that he was the Minister before the war who most assiduously told the House of Commons that no Italian or German arms were being sold to Franco Spain? Does not the right hon. Gentleman have some guilt on his conscience, which he ought at least to try to remedy by refusing to agree to this contract?

Mr. Butler: I have no guilt on my conscience. My previous activities when I was Under-Secretary were concentrated upon keeping us out of the Spanish Civil War, and my present activities are doing my best for my country.

Sir P. Agnew: Is it not a welcome consequence of the defeat of the Spanish Armada that the Spanish Government recognise the superiority of design which our warship designers can produce? Is it not, therefore, highly desirable that this design should be allowed to be used by a country with whom Her Majesty's Government have a cultural agreement?

Mr. Butler: indicated assent.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Was not there a rather premature disclosure of this transaction? Is it true that it was announced in London before it had been announced in Madrid? Indeed, has it yet been announced by Spain? Has any agreement yet been concluded?

Mr. Butler: I said in my original Answer that no firm decision to build ships of British design has so far been communicated to us by the Spanish authorities. There was a premature disclosure.

Oral Answers to Questions — ISRAEL

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in view of the continuing threats against Israel being made by Colonel Nasser, what consultations have been held with the United States of America and France, as co-signatories of the Tripartite Pact of 1951, since Her Majesty's Government last endorsed the

statement made by the President of the United States on his policy in the event of the violation of frontiers or armistice lines by Israel or any Arab State, about the action to be taken jointly by the three Governments under the terms of that pact and through the United Nations.

Mr. R. A. Butler: We naturally keep in close touch with our allies on all questions affecting the peace and stability of the Middle East.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) stated on 14th May, 1963, we regard the United Nations as being primarily responsible for the maintenance of peace in the area. If any threat to peace arises we will consult immediately with the United Nations, and will take whatever action we feel may be required.

Mr. Johnson: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that it would be in the interests of peace in the Middle East if the Egyptian Government knew that an act of aggression against Israel would have more serious repercussions than a resolution before the Security Council, which probably would be vetoed?

Mr. Butler: I think that the Government of Egypt realise that this would entail serious consequences.

Mr. S. Silverman: Is the Foreign Secretary not aware that Egypt, which is being rearmed by the Soviet Union, has declared an implacable war against Israel and that the other Arab States, which are being equally strongly armed by this country, have also declared an implacable war against Israel? Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that he is contributing anything to the peace of the Middle East by encouraging a competition in arms by both sides, each of which is directed against the same small country in their midst?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir, we have no desire to encourage a race in armaments. I said in answer to an earlier Question this afternoon that it is our desire to see that peace is kept in the Middle East.

Mr. P. Williams: In this field of implacable attacks on various countries, is my hon. Friend aware that, whatever words might be used about Israel, the


fact is that Egypt is attacking and invading the Yemen? What action is being taken to implement the United Nations resolution on this matter?

Mr. Butler: The Yemen raises a wider question than is raised by this Question. I hope that we may discuss it tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — EASTERN EUROPE (BRITISH DIPLOMATS)

Commander Courtney: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on how many occasions over the past three years British diplomatic representatives in East European countries have been subjected to some form of arrest or detention within the meaning of Article 29 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations signed by the representatives of 81 States in 1961.

Mr. P. Thomas: Our missions in Eastern Europe have reported six occasions during the last three years, of which four have been in the Soviet Union, on which British representatives of diplomatic rank have been subjected to what must be regarded as detention.

Commander Courtney: Does not this represent six clear cases of a breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations? Would my right hon. Friend not agree that there is a widely differing interpretation in various countries of the words "arrest" and "detention"? Does not the fact that we observe these international agreements always react to our disadvantage?

Mr. Thomas: I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that there were, in our view, six clear cases of improper detention and in each case we have made appropriate protest. It is important that there should not be these differing interpretations, and we hope that in the future we will interpret the Convention identically.

Oral Answers to Questions — MOSCOW (BRITISH AIR ATTACHÉ)

Commander Courtney: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action he has taken regarding the application of Article 3 of the Vienna

Convention on Diplomatic Relations to the recently publicised activities of the British Air Attaché in Moscow.

Mr. P. Thomas: Article Three of the Vienna Convention states a generally accepted principle, namely, that one of the functions of a diplomatic mission is to ascertain by all lawful means conditions and developments in the country where it is situated. The activities of our Service Attachés in Moscow are strictly in accordance with this principle. Soviet statements that the Air Attaché has behaved improperly are entirely without foundation and the restrictions placed upon his movements are, as we have informed the Soviet authorities, in gross violation of normal diplomatic practice. In addition to a vigorous protest, we felt obliged to impose a corresponding restriction on the movements of the Soviet Air Attaché in London.

Commander Courtney: Can my right hon. Friend say whether this activity of our Air Attaché was in any way unlawful within the terms of Soviet law, as has been quoted widely in the Soviet Press? If not, as appears to be the case from my right hon. Friend's Answer, does it not appear that we are once more suffering from a double standard of interpretation of these words within an international agreement?

Mr. Thomas: The main complaint was that, when he was on a tour with two American colleagues, our Air Attaché entered a prohibited zone of military importance. As far as we can ascertain, this was not in contravention of Soviet law. We do not accept the accusation and I agree with the last part of my hon. and gallant Friend's supplementary question.

Oral Answers to Questions — DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITIES (MOTOR CARS)

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what arrangements exist for him to be informed of cases where traffic or parking regulations have been broken by drivers of cars with diplomatic immunity so that he can inform the ambassador concerned.

Mr. Mathew: Arrangements have recently been made for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to provide the


Foreign Office with regular weekly lists of fixed penalty violations of parking regulations involving persons entitled to diplomatic immunity. These lists are compiled by the Metropolitan Police. More serious traffic offences are individually reported to the Foreign Office by the Home Office.

Mr. Johnson: Is my hon. Friend aware of the great need for these arrangements, because infringements of the parking laws by cars which have diplomatic immunity or which carry a disc are extremely frequent? Is he aware that only this morning, a traffic warden showed me four such cars which were illegally parked in a very short length of street and said that they were there every day, that the occupant of one car stayed to lunch and that there was nothing that the warden could do about it? Is it not absolutely wrong that our motorists should be penalised by these people? If they cannot keep our laws, cannot they be asked to leave the country?

Mr. Mathew: It is for the reasons given by my hon. Friend that new arrangements have recently been instituted to report fixed penalty offences to the ambassadors concerned with a request that the regulations should in future be observed. The more serious offences have always been reported to the ambassadors individually. We must wait and see how the new arrangements work. I may say that the Diplomatic Corps has, in general, shown a considerable willingness to co-operate.

Mr. Rankin: Was the person who killed a cyclist outside the precincts of this House last Monday evening travelling under diplomatic immunity? Is that the reason why nothing has been heard of the accident and so far nothing done in regard to the person who caused the death?

Mr. Mathew: I have no information about that individual case, but if the hon. Member cares to put down a Question I will do my best to answer it.

Mr. Rankin: Questions are already down.

SOUTH AFRICA (RIVONIA TRIAL)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. BROCKWAY: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how the United Kingdom delegate on the Security Council of the United Nations voted on the emergency resolution on 9th June urging the Government of the Republic of South Africa to renounce the execution of persons sentenced to death for acts resulting from their opposition to apartheid and to grant an amnesty particularly to the defendants of the Rivonia trial; and how other members voted.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. R. A. Butler): I will, with permission, now answer Question No. 37.
The United Kingdom delegation, together with those of the United States, France and Brazil, abstained on this resolution, which was not a mandatory one. The delegations of Bolivia, Nationalist China, Czechoslovakia, the Ivory Coast, Morocco, Norway and the Soviet Union voted for the resolution.
Sir Patrick Dean said that our main reason for abstaining on the resolution had been its timing and the possible adverse effects which its passing at that time and our vote in favour of it might have had on the verdicts at the Rivonia trial. He said that the reaction to our intervention at the very time when the trial was sub judice might not have been at all in the interests of the defendants at the trial.
As regards the present situation, I understand that the convicted men have 14 days in which to apply for leave to appeal. Her Majesty's Government consider that it would not necessarily be in the interests of the men themselves to make representations to the South African Government while the question of any appeals is still undecided.
The House will be aware that we have made strong representations on the occasion of the vote of the General Assembly on 11th October and have told the South African Government of the strong feelings in this country on trials based on arbitrary laws. We naturally


deplore the absence of any political means of expression for African political leaders in South Africa, as also the arbitrary nature of the laws under which they have been brought to trial.

Mr. Brockway: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very wide and deep feeling of indignation in the country and throughout the world on account of the prison sentences in this trial? Is he aware that many of us have felt humiliated that during the last five days, when Members of Parliament have continually pressed for a statement by the Government, there has been an ignoble silence upon the Government benches? Is the right hon. Gentleman able to say why the United Kingdom delegate abstained on the resolution when it came before the Security Council although our delegate voted in favour of the resolution in October when trials were also sub judice?
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what pressure was exerted on the Government to abstain on this occasion? Will he now press for the release of these prisoners, including Mr. Goldberg—whose wife is listening to this Question and Answer—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] Will he press particularly in the case of Mr. Goldberg, who holds a British passport?

Mr. Butler: The Government are well aware of the very deep feelings on this matter in the country and in the House. The Government feel just as strongly as others who feel about it, both in the House and outside. We have been under no pressure whatsoever, nor has any pressure been attempted to be exerted. Our action has been governed entirely by what we think is best for the men concerned. That is why we have acted as we have done both at the United Nations and elsewhere.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Does my right hon. Friend realise that many of us on this side of the House who, like hon. Members opposite, want to see in South Africa more representation of and more consultation with the non-whites still believe that Her Majesty's Government have been perfectly correct in the attitude they have taken up?
Can my right hon. Friend explain why the Security Council thought it proper to

take up this particular case and not other such cases in Africa, as, for example, the mass flogging of Zanzibaris who have not the right of peaceful demonstration, as still remains in South Africa—Zanzibaris who are picked on for their race and their opinions?

Mr. Butler: I note what my hon. Friend has said, but I cannot be responsible for what is chosen by the United Nations in the way of resolutions.

Mr. Gordon Walker: While we welcome the words the right hon. Gentleman has spoken today, which represent the views of both sides of the House, may I ask whether he is not aware that it would have been better if these same views were very clearly and strongly expressed by our representatives at the United Nations? [HON. MEMBERS: "Zanzibaris?"] This trial is the question before us. This is one of the issues in the world in which each country has to stand up and be counted and the time has come when we must do that without any equivocation.

Mr. Butler: Our action at the United Nations was taken without equivocation. If the right hon. Gentleman will read the speech made by Sir Patrick Dean, he will see that he expressed the sentiments which we all feel. The fact that we abstained was in the best interests of the men concerned.

Mr. Thorpe: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why, if it was right to abstain because the matter was sub judice, it was also right to vote when the matter was sub judice in October, when the Rivonia trial had been going on for four months? Will he press particularly the case of those persons detained for 90 days at a time without trial? May we hope that one day even this Government may be prepared to forgo economic profit in order to enforce principle?

Mr. Butler: On this occasion we acted in the light of information received. I think that our decision has proved to be the right one in the circumstances.

Mr. Gower: Will my right hon. Friend comment on the fact that it is a hopeful thing that it appears from what we have heard that at least the judiciary in South Africa has acted independently


on this occasion? Is that not a hopeful sign in the midst of so much which is of deep concern?

Mr. Butler: I should not like to comment on the situation in South Africa. I would prefer to leave things as they are.

Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the relatives of the condemned men believe that only the pressure of world opinion saved them from the death sentence? Would he agree that, even so, these men, the most moderate and able leaders in Africa, are to be imprisoned for life unless that world opinion exercises itself again? In view of this fact, will Her Majesty's Government, in the interests not only of the humane cause of the men themselves but the peace of the world and peaceful development in South Africa, now throw their whole weight behind the demand for the release of these men from the terrible and wicked sentences which have been imposed upon them?

Mr. Butler: I can only hope that world opinion will exert itself and that the opinion of this House will be made quite clear in South Africa. That may be one advantage of our meeting today. But I cannot go further than I have done in my Answer.

BRITISH GUIANA

The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies (Mr. Duncan Sandys): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will make a statement on the situation in British Guiana.
I told the House last week that during the four months' sugar strike in British Guiana there had been numerous acts of inter-racial strife, including arson, murder and other forms of lawlessness, and that about 40 people had lost their lives and between 400 and 500 had been injured.
Against this background of violence and fear, the killing of Mr. Arthur Abraham, a senior Guianese civil servant, and seven of his children, on Friday morning, created an explosive situation.
In order to forestall further acts of terrorism, which he had reason to believe

were planned, the Governor considered it urgently necessary to detain a number of persons. I authorised him to assume the necessary powers under the British Guiana (Emergency Provisions) Order 1964, which was made on 29th May in anticipation of a possible deterioration in the situation. This Order confers upon the Governor the right to exercise emergency powers at his own discretion instead of, as previously, on the advice of Guianese Ministers.
The Governor ordered a number of arrests to be made on Saturday morning. These include the following members of the Legislative Assembly: Mr. Brindley Benn (Deputy Premier); Mr. Moses Bhagwan (Chairman of the Youth Organisation of the People's Progressive Party); Mr. Harry Lall (President of the Guyana Agricultural Workers' Union); Mr. R. J. Jordan (a member of the People's National Congress); and Mr. Victor Downer (member of the People's Progressive Party).
Strong security measures were taken to prevent an outbreak of violence during the funeral of the Abraham family, and despite huge crowds this took place peacefully.
Over the weekend there have been three further incidents in which two Africans and one Indian were killed. Nevertheless, the situation is now generally quiet throughout the country; and there are signs that the mass of ordinary people welcome the decision to take firm action to quell terrorism.
I shall continue to keep the House informed.

Mr. Bottomley: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that none of us on this side of the House—and, I am sure, no one in the House as a whole—would wish to see this bitterness or racial conflict extended. On the other hand, the Government must surely ensure that fairness is shown. With this end in view, has the right hon. Gentleman considered appointing a tribunal to consider the cases?
Does he also recollect that, in the debate on the British Guiana Order in Council, on 27th April last, I questioned whether the action that the Government were then about to take would help to bring racial conflict to an end and that


I received an affirmative reply? I am bound to say now that it does not look as though the Government's policy is succeeding.
Will the right hon. Gentleman consider raising this whole question at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting? After all, that meeting will be multiracial and perhaps pressure from the Commonwealth Prime Ministers jointly would have greater effect than Her Majesty's Government have had in British Guiana.

Mr. Sandys: A tribunal which reviews cases of people who have been detained already exists under the Constitution. I see no object in setting up a commission of inquiry into the matter. The painful facts are only too well known and I do not think that such an inquiry would serve any purpose.
I must correct the right hon. Gentleman on one point. He says that I told the House in our recent debate that my policy would end racial conflict. What I did do was to make it clear, quite frankly, that the purpose of this change in the method of election—the introduction of proportional representation—was deliberately designed to try to create a situation in which the racial parties would be obliged to get together and form a coalition, which we had all of us been unable to persuade them to do hitherto.
The right hon. Gentleman suggests referring this matter to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. I think it highly unlikely that, in the few hours which they have available for their discussions, they could find a solution to a problem which so many others, over a period of years, have tried in vain to solve.

Sir H. Oakshott: Is it not a fact that Dr. Jagan has asserted that the action that has been taken is an infringement of fundamental rights? This assertion has been repeated in this country. Can it possibly be said, in the light of what has happened, that there is any truth in it?

Mr. Sandys: This assertion has been much publicised and I want to make the position clear. Article 29 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights provides that the rights of the individual

may be subject to limitations in the interests of public order. The European Convention of Human Rights and practically all modern constitutions—including that of British Guiana—also provide for the right of detention without trial in a state of emergency.
I must also point out that the right to detain without trial was included in the emergency powers assumed by Dr. Jagan and his Government in the emergencies declared by them in 1962 and 1963.

Mr. Grimond: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there will be universal horror at the killing of Mr. Abraham and seven of his children? Is he further aware that there will be widespread sympathy with the Governor in the situation in which he has been placed? Is it not the case that, with the detention of a senior member of the British Guiana Government, the future of that country is now exceedingly dark?
As the right hon. Gentleman has said that this is not a responsibility which brings either advantage or prestige to Britain, will he consider consulting other members of the Commonwealth—not necessarily the Prime Minister's meeting—to see whether they could not be associated in finding a solution?

Mr. Sandys: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's references to the Governor. I think that the Governor has an extremely difficult task and needs all our support and encouragement.
The right hon. Gentleman suggests consulting other members of the Commonwealth independently, perhaps, of the Prime Minister's meeting. There have, of course, already been a number of efforts.
There was the good will mission—so called—from Ghana which went to British Guiana to try to help, but which was unsuccessful. The Prime Ministers of Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica had a meeting with Dr. Jagan, Dr. Burnham and Mr. D'Agviar, but that also came to nothing. Then Dr. Eric Williams, the Prime Minister of Trinidad, made an individual attempt the other day to try to bring about some agreement between them and that has so far also failed. But if the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) has any


further suggestions, I would be glad to consider them. Those who are in the best position to help in this matter have tried their hand and have so far been unsuccessful.

Mr. Gardner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in that potentially great country, there is a considerable number of people of moderate and sensible opinion? Will he do all in his power immediately to enlist their support and help to try to resolve this tragic situation?

Mr. Sandys: I have no doubt that the great majority of the people of that unhappy country do deplore and loathe the state of racial hatred which is being intensified and encouraged there. But, as everyone knows, it is often difficult for the rank and file of the population to act independently of their leaders.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we all deplore this violence and hope that the steps that have been taken will bring peace and quiet to that country, which is torn by racial hatred?
Has the right hon. Gentleman now changed his mind? Is he now convinced that no constitutional device will bring peace to British Guiana unless there is the will on both sides to work it? Since that will is not yet forthcoming, and it is clear that the elections which he thought would be held shortly cannot possibly take place in this situation, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the suggestion, made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Bottomley) and me, that there would be some advantage in putting this to the Prime Ministers' meeting?
Let us be frank about his matter. This is a racial conflict between Africans and Indians in British Guiana. Prime Ministers representing both African nations and Indian, wielding great influence, will be here. Surely it would be worth another attempt to try to get these two races and their leaders in British Guiana together to bring peace to the country.

Mr. Sandys: I think that I have already, in reply to two questions, dealt with that point concerning the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting, although I entirely appreciate the right

hon. Gentleman's anxiety. The right hon. Gentleman also referred to a constitutional change. Of course, to make a success of any constitution one needs the co-operation of the population as a whole, but I respectfully point out that during our recent debate, although many people — including myself — expressed doubts as to whether the policy we were pursuing would necessarily produce the results we all hoped for, no one—certainly not the Front Bench opposite-produced any alternative policy.

Mr. Wall: As, for several years, every effort has been made to make democracy work in British Guiana, will my right hon. Friend now consider whether, in the interests of the people, the Constitution should be suspended?

Mr. Sandys: That, of course, is the extreme step and one which I want to avoid if it is not absolutely essential.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: Can the Secretary of State tell us whether Dr. Jagan has agreed to carry on his Government in the new circumstances? Can the right hon. Gentleman give us some further clarification about the power of detention without trial? I have studied the Order in Council of 29th May, but I cannot find it there.
Will the right hon. Gentleman take it from this side of the House that we have the greatest sympathy for the Abrahams family concerning the atrocity against it and that we wish to do everything to help the Governor to get the political leaders together to seek a reconciliation between the races?

Mr. Sandys: As I explained earlier, the power to detain is the same power which was taken by Dr. Jagan's Government in the emergency regulations which they made last year and the year before. On this occasion they did not take those powers, although the Governor advised that they should. It was because those powers were not available to him on the advice of the Ministers of the British Guiana Government that the Governor was obliged to ask me for authority to assume these powers himself.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: A tribute has been paid to the Governor, but will my right hon. Friend accept the understanding of the entire House in the extremely onerous


problems and difficult decisions in which he is now placed, due not in any way to the seeking of this country?
As regards the arrest of the political leaders, what other attitude could my right hon. Friend possibly have adopted towards individuals who were advocating and supporting measures of violence and intimidation which they in their position ought to have been suppressing?

Mr. Bottomley: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether Dr. Jagan intends to carry on as Prime Minister?

Mr. Sandys: The right hon. Gentleman will have to ask him.

Mr. Reynolds: The right hon. Gentleman has told us that a member of the Government of British Guiana and other leading politicians have been arrested. Is he aware that if we follow normal precedent it is quite possible, whatever these people may or may not have done, that in due course they will be members of an independent government of that country? Will he, therefore, investigate some of the reports that these men were publicly handcuffed and walked across an aerodrome, and have now been deported to a penal prison colony, although they have not been tried for anything and presumably will not be tried? Will he ensure that they are not kept in a penal prison colony?
As they are elected members of an assembly, does he not agree that they ought not to be publicly humiliated by being handcuffed and walked across an aerodrome, whatever may be the reason for holding them without trial, which one does not question at the moment?

Mr. Sandys: There is no desire to humiliate anybody. They are detained for the sake of public safety and not to be humiliated.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot pursue this matter without a Question before the House.

Orders of the Day — FISHERY LIMITS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.54 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The House has considered numerous Bills dealing with fishery matters in recent years, but the question of fishery limits, with which this Bill deals, has not been the subject of legislation since, I believe, the Sea Fisheries Act, 1883. That Act, in giving statutory effect to the principle of a three-mile limit, introduced no innovation, but merely confirmed a situation then generally accepted in international law. The small size of the present Bill, in terms of the number of Clauses, is, therefore, no measure of its importance and historical significance.
The problem of fishery limits has a long history. The three-mile limit became generally if not universally established during the last century. Since the last war, it has become more and more challenged with an increasing number of States claiming wider fisheries jurisdiction for themselves. The United Kingdom has consistently favoured the doctrine of narrow limits, that was the traditional view of international law and it was also in accordance with the interests of our fishing industry as a whole.
The trawling section of our fishing industry, which provides by far the greater proportion of our supplies of fish, reached its present level by progressively extending the sphere of its operations and by fishing more distant grounds, many of them close to the shores of other countries. So long as the three-mile rule was generally observed by other countries, the gain to our deep-sea industry far outweighed any disadvantages which there might have been—and there undoubtedly were—at home. But in recent years, as we all know, there has been a steady trend towards wider limits by other countries. Today, practically all the countries off whose coasts there are fisheries of


importance to our trawling fleets have extended, or are about to extend, their limits.
We have had to change our thinking about our own limits, keeping in step with what was in the wider interests of our fishing industry as a whole and our national interest. On the one hand, the practice of States showed that it was no longer realistic to regard three miles as the limit beyond which fisheries jurisdiction could not be recognised in international law. This is because so many States have extended their limits. On the other, it could not be said that the restriction of the United Kingdom limits to three miles was any longer helping to safeguard the major part of our fish supplies from off foreign coasts.
It was in these circumstances that Her Majesty's Government came to the conclusion that some extension of limits should no longer be denied to our own fishermen, a conclusion welcomed by many hon. Members who have consistently advocated it in the past. To that end we took steps, a little more than a year ago, to terminate certain treaty obligations, dating from the last century, so as to gain freedom of action for ourselves in this respect.
Here, let me say that our sole motive in taking this decision was to secure more scope for our own fishermen in the waters around our coasts. I stress this because some countries have claimed to be extending their limits in order to secure better conservation of fish stocks. This is an argument which we have never accepted. The proper way to conserve fish stocks is by international action, equitable to all, in the Conservation Commissions which have been set up and in whose work, incidentally, the United Kingdom plays a leading part, and not by unilateral action to restrict the activities of some fishermen so that others may reap the benefit.
We have not accepted conservation as a justification for other countries extending their limits, and we do not claim it today in justification of the Bill. Our concern can be simply stated. It is to secure for our inshore fishermen a wider area in which they can conduct their operations without interference from foreign vessels.
Her Majesty's Government have always felt that action over fisheries affecting the interests of other countries should be taken, if at all possible, by agreement, as we have shown by the strenuous efforts which we have made at the two Geneva conferences to reach world agreement on a new rule of international law in this respect. We therefore hoped that the extension of our own limits could take place as part of a more general settlement covering a range of fishery problems in production and trade. With this in view, we invited the countries concerned to the Fisheries Conference which took place a few months ago.
The conference was successful in reaching a very wide measure of agreement on fishery limits, expressed in the draft of a Fisheries Convention. I know that the House would like to join with me in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for the able way in which he chaired and guided the conference to a successful conclusion. The Convention has since been signed by 12 countries, including the United Kingdom. The purpose of the Bill is to establish the fishery regime in our waters for which the Convention provides.
Under this régime the coastal State will have a 12-mile fishery zone measured from baselines, and within this zone power to regulate the fisheries. In the inner six miles the fishing is reserved to the fishermen of the coastal State, subject to a short transitional period for foreign fishermen who have traditionally fished within it. In the outer six miles the fishing is, in principle, reserved for the fishermen of the coastal State and other parties to the Convention who have habitually fished in that area. In this way, such foreign fishermen will be restricted to the stocks and grounds which they have already fished.
Before I turn to the Clauses of the Bill I should like to add a few words about third parties, that is to say, countries who are not parties to the Convention, but who, nevertheless, have some interest in the fisheries round our coast. There are only two or three countries in this position and the extent of the fishing they do close to our shores is not very great. Nevertheless, we should


like to feel that in their case, too, we were proceeding by agreement, and we shall need to consider with them what their position will be. Apart from this, it will be necessary to agree in detail with the countries who have signed the Convention about the exact extent of their traditional fishing in our waters. Taking these points into account, we hope that the new arrangements can be brought into full operation in the course of September.
The kernel of the Bill is in Clause 1. It provides for the extension of our limits and for our control of access by foreign fishermen to the fisheries within the limits. The limits which the Bill extends to 12 miles from baselines are divided into two belts—the "exclusive fishery limits" which form the inner six miles, and the "outer belt" from six to 12 miles. Within the exclusive fishery limits, as the term implies, the fishing will be reserved to British vessels just as it is today within the three-mile limit. In the outer six miles foreign vessels can be allowed to fish in accordance with a "designation Order", otherwise they will be excluded from this outer belt as well.
The Convention provides that to qualify for recognition to be able to continue to fish between six and 12 miles this foreign fishing must have been carried on habitually during the 10 years up to and including 1962, and that it must not be directed in future towards new grounds or new stocks of fish. We can, therefore, exclude fishing of recent origin and we can exclude stocks and grounds which have not been habitually fished. In drawing up the designation Orders, which we shall do after discussions with the countries concerned, we shall, of course, need to take account of the fact that fish move around and that many species are often found on the same grounds. But we shall be able, for example, to distinguish between herring fisheries, fisheries for white fish and shell fisheries.
The power of designation is not limited to the vessels of countries who are parties to the Convention. For example, when we made our Fishery Agreement with Norway we agreed that if the United Kingdom established a fishery zone we should be prepared to make for Norwegian vessels arrangements corre-

sponding to those which that agreement made for British vessels off Norway. The amount of fishing done by Norwegian vessels off our coast is, however, very limited.
Then again, Poland and Russia are interested in the herring fishery off some part of our coast. We are in touch with them about the possible effect of the extension of our limits on their interests and we hops soon to conclude arrangements with them.
The new baselines which we are drawing afresh are in conformity with the 1958 Geneva Convention. A map setting these out has been in the Library for some time. We shall be able to close bays with straight lines up to 24 miles in length whereas at present 10 miles is the maximum length for a bay closing line. This will have some effect in England and Wales and on the East Coast of Scotland. Off the West Coast of Scotland, however, with its indentations and islands, the new baselines will enclose much more substantial areas of waters, notably in the Minches and the Firth of Clyde.

Mr. Frederick Peart: What about the Solway?

Mr. Soames: It is on the map. Solway is enclosed by a bay closing line, as opposed to the indentations and islands further north, but there will be an increase in the amount of water for our own fishermen there as well.
Hon. Members may be surprised, therefore, at the absence from the Bill of any reference to baselines, except incidentally as the lines from which our limits are measured. The reason for this is simply that the promulgation of baselines is an exercise of the Royal prerogative which, accordingly, does not require the authority of the Bill. But it was understood during the making of the Convention that we would be altering our baselines according to what was possible and proper within the 1958 Convention. It is the Government's intention—and we must give some notice of this to foreign fishermen—that the new baselines should become operative in September, when we are hoping to bring in the new fisheries régime as a whole under the Bill.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Before the right hon. Gentleman


leaves the important question of the baselines, may I point out that there is nothing in the Bill to indicate that there will be any international agreement on them? There may, therefore, be international complications and even violence—and there have been some episodes—over the drawing of the baselines. What agreement has the right hon. Gentleman arrived at to fit in with the other nations affected?

Mr. Soames: The baselines will be drawn under the 1958 Geneva Convention, to which a large number of countries have appended their signatures. They are not being made under the Bill. The alterations which we shall be able to make to our baselines will be in accordance with the 1958 international Convention. This is something on which I do not think that anybody envisages having any trouble. This enables us to extend the closing lines further out from the bays and to draw straight baselines rather than follow the indentations and islands. This is an international agreement in which we and a number of countries are partners.
I have dealt so far with the provisions governing fishing within our new limits once they become fully effective. Meanwhile, there is to be a transitional period.

Commander Harry Pursey: The right hon. Gentleman has explained the baselines, but may I ask what is meant by a "median line"? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House which are likely to be the designated countries?

Mr. Soames: The median line applies in the case of two countries that are so close together that the 12-mile limit from one country might extend into the 12-mile limit of the other. The limit should not cross a line which is equidistant from the two countries—in the Strait of Dover, for instance, where there may not be a full 24 miles between our coast and the coast of France.

Mr. Hector Hughes: What about Norway and Denmark?

Mr. Soames: This Bill relates only to our coast and not to the Norwegian and Danish coasts. This point specifically refers to the Channel. The

12-mile limit for France, were she to adopt it, and for ourselves could not extend beyond the median line, which is the line mid-way between the two countries.

Commander Pursey: And the designated countries?

Mr. Soames: The designated countries are those countries which are designated by Order as being able to fish within the six to 12-mile belt. This will apply, as I have explained, to those countries which have had traditional fishing over the last 10 years in certain parts of our waters, and they will be designated as being enabled to continue to fish, but only between six and 12 miles.

Commander Pursey: Could the Minister list them now, so that we may know which those countries are?

Mr. Soames: No. This is a matter which was dealt with at the conference. It is a matter for negotiation between the different countries to the Convention, as to what are the traditional fishery interests of individual countries fishing off other countries. We have not yet reached the point of being able to say what exactly the designated Orders will be for different countries fishing within the six to 12-mile belt, but this will be done in accordance with the principle which I have enunciated.
Meanwhile, until the régime comes into full operation there is to be a transitional period for traditional foreign fishing between three and six miles from baselines. This is dealt with in Clause 2. Where the baselines remain the same, which is the case around most of our coast, the transitional period will come to an end at the end of the year 1965.
On the parts of the coast where we are drawing new baselines the transitional period will last for a further year because the new baselines will themselves have the effect of immediately widening our exclusive fishery limits. So we are there giving one extra year of transitional period, although, of course, from the time that our baselines are put out our fishermen will gain from the difference as between the old baseline plus three miles and the new baseline plus three miles.
So much for the new régime where it concerns the access by foreign vessels to fishing grounds within our new limits. Apart from this, the Convention also gives the coastal State the right to regulate the fisheries within its limits and to enforce the regulations on all who fish within them. The only restriction on this power is that the regulations must not discriminate, either in form or in fact, as between our own vessels and those of other countries.
The right to enforce conservation measures on British and foreign vessels alike is one to which we attach great importance. To do it we do not have to ask the House for new powers. It is simply a question of adapting the powers which we have under our existing legislation to apply conservation regulations to British vessels, and this is done in the First Schedule to the Bill. It means that once the Bill is passed, new Orders can be made which will apply conservation measures to foreign vessels when they are fishing within our fishery limits, as well as to British vessels. In other words, we shall be applying to foreign vessels exactly the same rules that we apply to our own, and we shall also be taking power to enforce them.
This country has for long taken the lead in promoting conservation through international co-operation. We now have a modern instrument for this purpose in the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, of which all countries fishing in the North-East Atlantic, without exception, are members. It is the job of this Commission to take all the measures that conservation demands, and this is our own purpose and intention. At the meeting of the Commission last month, on the initiative of the United Kingdom, a special committee was set up to examine the problems involved in making collective arrangements for enforcing conservation measures on the high seas.
It has long been a matter of complaint among our own fishermen that internationally agreed conservation measures are not equally observed by everybody. Collective international enforcement would, of course, be the ideal remedy, but this will take some time to come about. Meanwhile, within

our own 12-mile limit we now have the power under the Bill to enforce internationally agreed conservation measures on all who fish within our limits.
There is one other provision in the Schedule to which I should draw attention, and that is the reference to the Sea Fisheries Regulation Act, 1888.

Mr. Hector Hughes: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman again, but he says that Her Majesty's Government will have the power to enforce conservation measures. Does not that statement disregard the powers of other nations which may dispute these measures and which have, indeed disputed our powers in the past. Denmark, Finland and Norway have been responsible for incidents of this kind. Surely, under the Bill Her Majesty's Government cannot enforce a power of this kind regardless of the other Governments' interests.

Mr. Soames: Indeed we can. This has been agreed as between ourselves and the greater proportion of other countries engaged in fishing off our own coasts. Where other countries are concerned, we are satisfied that in moving our fishing limits out to 12 miles we are entitled to take this power, and this power is widely exercised by other countries. This is not a matter about which the hon. and learned Gentleman need feel any anxiety lest we might be imposing some arrangement which is not internationally agreed.

Sir Alexander Spearman: On the question of enforcement, can my right hon. Friend give some encouragement that he will be able to police the areas more effectively when they are extended? A great deal of damage has been done, by one foreign country in particular, to fishing vessels off the Yorkshire coast.

Mr. Soames: This, I know, is a matter which has been exercising the mind of my hon. Friend for many months. From time to time he has spoken to me about these incidents off the Yorkshire coast, and there have been many others off different parts of the coast. It will be for the Government to see that there are sufficient vessels available to do the job. Of course, there is now a bigger job to do in that we are taking


on our own enforcement, as opposed to the past, when all that could be done was to inform other countries of our suspicions. This will be a matter for deliberation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy.
As for the number of vessels which will be necessary to implement the Government's policy—

Dame Irene Ward: Can my right hon. Friend say that we have the approval of the Treasury for the necessary amount of money to provide a sufficient number of fishery protection vessels? I am always suspicious when Treasury approval is required. How far have we got?

Mr. Soames: Surely my hon. Friend would not expect me to bring a Bill before the House without the necessary money being forthcoming to implement it. I think that my hon. Friend can rest assured. I would not like to give the impression to the House, or to people outside, that this means the Navy having a great job to do round our coasts. We shall have the power to regulate our own fisheries and see that our regulations are enforced within our own waters. I would not expect this provision to mean a great additional burden for the Fishery Protection Squadron. The fact that we have the power will in itself have the desired effect.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what estimate he has made of the cost of this additional fishery defence, and what figure he gave the Treasury?

Mr. Soames: This will not mean additional expense. It will merely mean that a ship and her crew who have been paid to do one job may be required to do this duty instead. This is not a question of a large increase in Admiralty Votes.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Surely, as the area to be protected is increased, so the area of potential depredations is increased. We must, therefore, increase the amount of protection. Surely it is not possible to load all that on to the already overburdened and inadequate fishery cruisers.

Mr. Soames: It will not have escaped the hon. Gentleman's attention that there will be a considerable area of water in the Minches, between the islands and the mainland, into which it will not be possible for foreign vessels to come. I would not expect it to be necessary to give any greatly increased protection, but, to the extent that it may be necessary to take on additional fishery protection vessels, my noble Friend the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy is well aware of what will be necessary for this purpose.
The 1888 Act, to which I was referring, provides for the establishment of the Sea Fisheries Committees who, as hon. Members know, are responsible for the regulation of fisheries within our existing three-mile exclusive fishery limits in England and Wales. In most of these areas there are byelaws prohibiting or severely restricting trawling. When the Government decided to extend our limits, it was no part of our intention that British trawlers should thereby find themselves excluded from any of the grounds around our coast which at present are open to them. An assurance to that effect has been given to the British Trawlers' Federation, and I can tell the House that the Sea Fisheries Committees, whom we have consulted, were fully in agreement with that decision.
To implement that, the 1888 Act is amended in the Bill so that in future the limits within which the Sea Fisheries Committees may be given jurisdiction will not be exclusive fishery limits, but territorial waters which will continue to extend only to three miles from the baselines. It is not the Government's intention to make any change in existing Committee areas.
I began by referring to the frequency of fisheries legislation in recent years. I am glad to say that if it has been frequent it has also been comparatively uncontroversial. I believe that this Bill will be no exception. The European Fisheries Convention was welcomed by both sides of the House, so I am confident that they will equally welcome the Bill, which enables us to put into effect the system for which the Convention provides and gives our inshore fishermen wider limits within which they will be able to fish free of the presence of foreign vessels.
I know that that will be a matter of great satisfaction to hon. Members representing fishing ports, who have been consistently putting forward the case of the inshore fishermen, and who have been looking forward to this day, when it is both right and possible to achieve the extension of our fishery limits for which the Bill provides.
I commend the Bill to the House.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: There is one question which is fundamental from the point of view of the inshore fishermen. Is it a fact that no additional protection is to be afforded to inshore fishermen, apart from the extension of the limits within which foreign vessels cannot fish?

Mr. Soames: Not in respect of British trawling. This is an extension of the limit to 12 miles for foreign vessels. As regards our home fishing, it was agreed and understood among all sections of the fishing industry that the object was not to exclude our fishermen from waters, but merely to have that effect on foreign vessels.

4.25 p.m.

Mr. James Hoy: We are grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the Bill. It is true that most of our fisheries legislation has proved non-controversial. I thought that the Bill was of a similar character, but, having heard some of the Minister's explanations, I must say that a certain amount of controversy is bound to arise.
To take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan), there is certain to be a considerable amount of perturbation amongst the inshore fishermen if we allow trawling right up to the limit round our coasts. I think that this will lead to trouble between the different sections of the industry.
I agree that when other countries have extended their limits they have always used the argument that one of the main reasons for doing so was to conserve the fishing grounds. The Minister said that the Government were having none of that nonsense, that the Bill would permit all sections of the British fishing fleet to fish inside these limits. He makes no pretence about conservation, and says that these grounds will be open to all sections of the industry.

Mr. Soames: Subject, of course, to any regulations that we choose to make about conservation.

Mr. Hoy: The Minister did not say that before. Everything will depend on the Orders. They will be very important, not with regard to the countries to be allowed into the six to 12-mile band, but to the type of fishing that is to take place in it.
Like my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey), I am disappointed that the Minister did not tell us which countries would be allowed to fish within that band.
I was glad to hear the Minister say that unilateral action would not solve this problem. Together with some of my hon. Friends on this side of the House, and two of my hon. Friends opposite, if I might so refer to them, I made a similar point in connection with salmon fishing.
I think that we must be frank and say that the Bill has not been carefully thought out. I add my thanks to the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for the way in which the negotiations leading up to the Bill were conducted. This procedure was urged on the Government a long time ago, when the International Law of the Sea Conference failed by only one vote to get an international agreement to provide for a six-mile limit all over the world. Had that conference succeeded, this Bill would not have been necessary. But, the conference having failed, it was urged on the Government that we should have a European Fisheries Convention, and that is what we have.
The Minister said that 12 countries had signed the Convention, and he named a few of them. I think that the right hon. Gentleman will admit that the countries who have not signed are those which are most important to us from the point of view of fishing and trade. These countries have the fishing grounds which we traditionally fish and it is they who have not signed this agreement, which is to be regretted.
I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland, if he replies to the debate, will define more clearly—and this is not a criticism of the Minister—what it is intended will take place up to the six-mile limit, who will fish within these waters, although they are reserved to us, and


what type of fishing will take place. This is an extremely important matter to both the trawler and inshore fishermen. It must be remembered that the inshore fishermen are depending on this ban for their livelihood. It is important that they should be in no doubt about the type of fishing that will take place within the six mile limit.
This information should be given to them not merely for the transitional period, but for all time, because it should be remembered that the grounds could be trawled to such an extent that there would be a danger of destroying the fish life in them. It is equally important that the trawlermen should know what they are permitted to do without contravening Government regulations.
I am grateful for the explanation the right hon. Gentleman gave about the six to 12-mile ban, although I do not know which foreign countries will be allowed to fish within that territory. I suppose that we will have to wait until an Order is laid before the House before having this information. I realise that this will be a difficult decision to take, because many other countries must be taken into consideration on this problem. I appreciate that we cannot unilaterally make a decision and simply say to other countries, "There it is and we do not want your opinion on it".
If the Bill is to work successfully it is important that these consultations should take place now, before decisions are made, for we do not want to be faced with recriminations later. The Minister said that there would be baselines and an agreed convention, but baselines are important in this scheme and the matter needs clarifying because it is all very well to say that certain things will be done for one's own country—and say, for example, that it could be 24 miles; that the 12 miles could become 24—and all this sounds interesting, but I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that this was one of the complaints we had against Iceland and the Faroes.
The right hon. Gentleman will recall that we complained about the position from which they drew their baselines and which denied to the British trawling fleet traditional trawling grounds well outside the 12-mile limit. We must consider this matter and ensure that it does

not have further repercussions on an important part of our fishing fleet, because if it is good enough for us to draw our baselines in this way we obviously cannot deny the same right to other countries. We must be extremely careful in the way we intend handling this matter.
I was interested in the intervention made by the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir A. Spearman) who, I regret, has left the Chamber. He asked what protection there would be for the fishing fleet and the Minister said, in effect "I know that for some months you have been expressing an interest in this matter". I hope that the Minister knows that a lot of interest has been expressed on this issue not for some months, but for many years, by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
I have been studying the map which the right hon. Gentleman placed in the Library for the convenience of hon. Members. This might interest you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for I wish to show that this matter has been discussed in the House on many occasions and for many years. One of my earliest recollections is of Parliamentary Questions which were asked about the Minch and Moray Firth. I recall my hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles asking Questions about those areas. Indeed, I had an Adjournment debate on the subject in 1961.
In doing some research into these problems I have discovered that there was a great debate in another place in 1907, and that the issue was vehemently raised in this House in 1908. Such a great issue was it considered to be that the then Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Scotland both took part in the debate. I was particularly interested in the contribution made by the hon. Member who at that time represented the St. Andrews Burghs constituency, listed in the OFFICIAL REPORT as Major Anstruther-Gray. He had a lot to say to the Government of the day. What was wanted, he declared, was a little backbone in the administration of Scotland. He went on to say that "all this flabby work" would not do and that he did not think that a decision of the judges of the High Court of Scotland should be upset by a telegram from England.
Those were fighting words and I am sure that you have experienced those words in another capacity, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I have taken the House back all those years to show that debates on this subject were going on even then. The Foreign Office spokesman of the day replied saying that, on behalf of the Scottish Office, he was allowed to say that the matter was continuing to receive the attention of the Secretary of State for Scotland. This shows that for all these years this problem has been discussed. We might make it clear today that the Minch and Moray Firth are now protected and that no longer will foreign fishermen be able to fish in waters that were denied to our own fishermen.

Sir John MacLeod: Is the hon. Member aware of the discussion which took place on this subject in 1905?

Mr. Hoy: Yes, and the High Court decision to which I referred was of that year. I have drawn attention to these facts to show that this is not a question of discussing something for a few months, but for over 50 years.
This Bill is before us as the result of other countries taking power to extend their fishing limits. It is this continual unilateral action which has produced the Bill. If it protects our fishermen we will be grateful for it, but certain problems arise, one of which remains despite what the Minister said. One of the complaints now being made is that international conventions are being flouted by fishermen from other countries and that there is a lack of supervision and protection by Her Majesty's Government for our fishermen.
One such complaint concerns the size of the mesh of net. This problem has been with us for a very long time. I want to know what steps the Government are taking, not only to protect us against any infringement of the new limits but also to prevent the use of a mesh which is illegal. This is important for the industry as a whole. There is no point the Minister saying that the existing vessels will be capable of enforcing the new arrangements. I understand that it is stated in this week's Fishing News that simply by adjusting our boundaries, as the Bill intends, we add about 20,000 square miles of sea to our fishing rights.

We cannot say that our present protection vessels are able simply to mop up, as it were, this additional water. More comprehensive action should be taken. We should not pretend to draw new fishing limits if, at the same time, we cannot take power to see that they are enforced. I hope that the Secretary of State will answer this question.
Flowing from the decisions taken in the Bill, there must be some responsibility for the consuming public, because we hope that we are not granting a monopoly while denying fish supplies to the consumer. We ought not to pass this Bill without mentioning what the repercussions might be. The Minister must know that there has been some considerable doubt among certain sections of the fish consuming interests about the decision of the British Trawlers Federation—and we can well understand it—to limit landings, Faroes landings in particular. We have this outcry from the Fish Fryers Association that supplies are being denied to them and that prices are moving up. Whenever we take action of this kind, we have to consider what the repercussions will be in other sections of the industry interested in fishing.
Perhaps I might make the suggestion that these difficulties might be overcome by a meeting between the respective industries arranged by the Chairman of the White Fish Authority, because it appears to me that this is more an internal than an external conflict and it might well be that he could use his good offices not only to smooth the working of this Bill but to meet the difficulties of the catching industry without sacrificing the interests of the consuming public. I make the suggestion to the Minister that he might well think of arranging a meeting or suggesting to the Chairman of the White Fish Authority that he might arrange a meeting of this kind.
But do not let us pretend that this Bill will bring a solution to the problems of the fishing industry. It will do nothing of the kind, because we cannot even conserve unilaterally. If countries are really interested in conservation and not paying lip-service to it, they have to act in an international manner. I hope that in passing this Bill, with the reservations that we can raise at a later stage, the Government will use their initiative once


more, even if they deal only with the problem of conservation, to gather the countries of Europe together if it is impossible to do it internationally, for at least we have waters of common usage to the European nations. Even if we get a conference on conservation only, I think that it would be a step forward, not only to preserve the fish life of the sea, but the livelihood of the people in the industry. This is terribly important.
So, from this side of the House, we certainly do not object to the Bill. We regard it as necessary to defend ourselves, because we have failed to get international agreement, but I hope that we shall not rest merely on the passing of this Bill but that we shall take steps to gather the nations together once more to see if we cannot from a European point of view give a lead to the rest of the world on the conservation of the fisheries of Europe.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Richard Stanley: Like the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy), I welcome the Bill. It is probably rather sad to have to give in, but as other countries have set the example, obviously, we had to follow. I was rather worried about what the hon. Member said. When I was in Fleetwood this weekend, I was warned that the Scotsmen might easily try in debating the Bill to get all the extended waters for their inshore fishing. In the past, the trawler fishermen from Fleetwood have gone up the west coast and done their trawling there. I hope, therefore, that now the limits are being extended they will not put any embargo on any English or British vessel.

Mr. Hoy: There is no median line between England and Scotland.

Mr. Stanley: There is some suspicion that different things can happen. I did not quite make out what my right hon. Friend was meaning about the Clyde. I hope that it will be possible to stop foreign vessels going right up the Clyde, as they can do at the moment, and that a proper limit will be kept for British trawlers. I gather that the situation seems to be working out better in the Moray Firth. It seems to me that one of the best things that could come out of this Bill would be for the protection

vessels to have the right when they stop foreign vessels within the 12-mile limit to confiscate all gear which has meshes under what the proper size should be.

Commander Pursey: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not want that silly nonsense to go out. All this jurisdiction is limited by the common law of England. There is no question of the Navy exercising the jurisdiction of the local magistrate. All that the Navy has to do is what the policeman does: arrest the vessel, take it into port, and then the skipper is sued before the local magistrate. The hon. Member is advocating piracy.

Mr. Stanley: I am afraid that the hon. and gallant Gentleman does not understand the question of mesh. If he would concentrate on the size of the mesh, and not go off into some extraordinary screaming, as he did a moment ago, he would do much better. All I am saying is that when the fishery protection vessels go out they have the right to search vessels now within the 12-mile limit and they should look at the gear. They are entitled to bring the vessel in and confiscate the gear, which then goes to the magistrate or whichever court has jurisdiction.

Commander Pursey: Commander Pursey indicated dissent.

Mr. Stanley: The hon. and gallant Gentleman may shake his head, but that is what happens in every other country, and in this one, too.
Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will see that the size of mesh is examined carefully. If we could get universal agreement by every country on a reasonable size of mesh, then the conservation of fish could be carried out. There is at the moment, as my right hon. Friend knows, considerable trouble with the French trawlers which sail into Morecambe Bay, and there are about forty every day, fishing with very small meshes. If something is not done they will fish the sea bare of fish.
I believe that this Bill will be of great help to the trawling industry if we can do something extra about keeping the size of meshes in proper limits. I welcome the Bill. It certainly will not be a panacea for the whole of the fishing industry, but I believe that it will be of help to us.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond: I start by apologising to the House. I have to go to a rather important Committee of the House later and, therefore, I am afraid that I shall be absent for some part of the debate.
As this Bill affects Scotland and Shetland very considerably, I welcome the opportunity of saying a few words about it. I do not intend to follow on the lines of the hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. R. Stanley), who appears to have enlivened this debate by stirring up local prejudice and evoking an accusation of piracy.
I welcome the Bill as far as it goes. But I think that now the conservation of stocks and the protection of spawning beds are probably even more important than the extension of limits. We shall also have to look very carefully at the enormous catching power of fishermen all over the North Sea, and all these matters, as the Minister has pointed out, are not directly dealt with in this Bill.
I wish to examine what is done by this Bill and to ask some questions. It extends the limit for foreign fishing to six miles, with a further discretionary limit, "the outer belt", up to 12 miles. I understood the Minister to say that the six-mile limit and the 12-mile limit, subject to exceptions which may be made, is closed to all types of fishing, including fishing for shell-fish and dogfish, by every method, whether by line, net, creel or anything else. Clause 1(3) which has puzzled some people, was also dealt with by the Minister. I wish to raise a point on that later and to ask what is meant by "arrangement". I understand that the right hon. Gentleman cannot yet tell us the effect of the provisions in this Clause as that will be subject to further negotiation.
We come to the important matter of baselines. They are to be drawn from Cape Wrath round the Butt of Lewis down to Barra and north of Ireland, and also, I understand, round the whole of the Shetlands. I should like it confirmed that the whole of the Barra Haaf is now within the limit. It also appears to me that the area used by the Russian fleet between the Skerries and Fetlar is also within the limit, and I should like the Minister to say a word about that.

The Russian fleet off Shetland fishes principally for herring. We have no complaint about it, except in a few areas where it is said to foul the ground. In general, our relationship with the Russian fleet and with the other fleets who come is good, and we should like them to come into port. If there is to be a restriction placed on them, I should welcome an attempt by the Foreign Office or the Scottish Office to see whether we could come to an arrangement by which they use, say, Basta Voe, or Mid-Yell or Lerwick. I am not sure whether they will be able to lie inside the limit. It is important that we should not create any situation which might lead to difficulty. We should welcome more use being made by the Russian fleet of the facilities which we are prepared to offer.
I am not quite clear about the baseline in the Moray Firth. It will not be, I fear, from Duncansby Head to Rattray Head. There will still be an area which can be fished by foreign trawlers. Even at this late date we shall not have succeeded in enforcing the judgment in Mortensen v. Peters which was a unanimous decision of the full High Court of Judiciary of Scotland and which was ignored by the Government. As they are such sticklers for the proprieties that they are unable to do anything in the case of toll bridges which have provided a monopoly income for centuries, it is odd that they should refuse to enforce that decision. As I understand it, there will still be an area free to foreign fishermen, and I should have thought this the moment to ensure that the baseline should be drawn from Duncansby Head to Rattray Head.
There is no mention in the First Schedule of the Herring Fishery Act (Scotland), 1889, and I am not sure why. Parts of the Act are still in force, including the restriction on fishing within the three-mile limit by certain trawling methods. It may be that I am wrong and that this Act has been superseded by other legislation, but I should be grateful to be told why the Act has been omitted. There is reference to the Whale Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1907. The Norwegians do a certain amount of fishing with harpoons in the North for basking sharks, and it would be an advantage if the Secretary of State could tell us the extent of the


limit on fishing for basking sharks. The 1907 Act also regulates catching of certain types of whales, including the herring-hog whale, which is now becoming scarce. It would be welcome if this Bill gave some protection to this and other whales.
I take it that byelaw No. 10 will still be in force and, as I think was said by the Minister, that the rest of the restrictions on fishing by British vessels round the coast remain unaltered. There is an important byelaw, No. 69, which affects fishing by seine netters under 50 feet round Shetland. I take it that Byelaw No. 69, and indeed all the existing byelaws, unless there are changes in future, will be unaffected by the Bill.
This Measure does little to protect the spawning beds. The Minister spoke of the enforcement of conservation measures, but I am not clear about how that is to be done. Perhaps the position could be clarified. I understand there is no question of building new fishery protection vessels, but the Minister said that the Admiralty would lend additional vessels. In Scotland, fishing enforcement vessels are not Admiralty vessels but are under the control of the Scottish Office. Has the Scottish Office any sources from which it can beg, borrow or steal more fishery enforcement vessels? There will be a larger job of enforcement to be done, and we should be told how the Government propose to do it.
I wish to return to Clause 1(3), which states:
For the purpose of giving effect to any convention, agreement or arrangement providing for sea-fishing by foreign fishing boats …
I understand the reason for this Clause. There are old-established customs of the sea, and many of us would be sorry to see them destroyed by the provision in this Bill, but "arrangement" has a wide meaning. What exactly does it mean? Does it cover anything and everything. Does it mean formal signed agreements, or conventions or some custom? What does it mean? I think that we should be given more information.
According to Clause 5, the provisions in this Bill will come into effect
on such a day as the Ministers may by order made by statutory instrument appoint.
The Minister said that it was expected that the major part of the Bill would come into operation in September. If

I understood him rightly, he indicated that there might be exceptions for areas where the baseline was altered. There are certain areas round my constituency which might be affected, and I should be grateful if he would provide further information about that. So far as I can see, there are also areas round the whole of the Hebrides where the baselines will be altered, and in that connection it may be a year before the provisions in the Bill come into operation.
I should appreciate a further word of explanation about the phrase, "habitual rights". Certainly the Norwegians have fished round the North of Scotland for a long time on a bigger scale than I think the Minister appreciates. Many other nations come there, including even the Spaniards and certainly the Swedes from time to time, as well as the Russian fleets. What is the word "habitual" intended to denote? The Russians have been coming for a matter of ten or fifteen years. Is that the period which is referred to or does it refer to nations whose fishermen have been fishing in the area for hundreds of years?
Does the whole of the provisions in the Bill apply to shell-fishing? May I take it that there is no intention to leave out shell-fishing from the authority of the Bill?
I must beg the indulgence of the House because I shall have to leave the Chamber for a time before the debate ends. I welcome the Bill, though its introduction is belated. I do not think that the provisions contained in it will solve the problems of the fishing industry, which will be serious if overfishing continues in certain parts of the North Sea. I wonder whether we shall be able to come to any arrangement by which we can introduce some mutual restrictions on fishing in various areas and prevent one country dumping fish at certain times on other countries when it is impossible to sell the fish in its own markets as happens at present with plaice. Subject to those comments, I welcome the Bill and hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.

5.0 p.m.

Sir Douglas Marshall: I share the anxiety of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) about whales, which are still being attacked by the Norwegians. The


right hon. Gentleman spoke about basking sharks. We have a number in the waters adjacent to my constituency. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman knows exactly what the Norwegians do with the basking sharks once they have harpooned them.

Mr. Grimond: The principal product is oil. The Norwegians extract it from the livers of the sharks. I dare say that the flesh is sent for fish meal, and so on.

Sir Douglas Marshall: I was interested in what the right hon Gentleman said because there may be some opportunity of developing this within the sharking industry, which is growing considerably in the areas around Cornwall.
The one consistent theme of the speeches has been the conservation of fish. It appears to all of us that this is one of the most important matters confronting the fishing industry at present. I trust that my right hon. Friend will be able to say whether any restrictions will be imposed or suggested within the limits coming under the Bill.
A number of us have for years struggled to obtain a limit such as is included in the Bill. Reference has been made to the subject being raised in 1961. I mentioned this subject in my maiden speech in 1945.
I also then mentioned the question of fishery protection vessels, and I would stress this point to my right hon. Friend. It is true that fishery protection vessels in Scotland come under the Secretary of State, but fishery protection vessels in this country come under the Admiralty. There are two points to be made here. First, we have not, and never have had anyway, enough of them. Secondly, if we are to enlarge the area to 20,000 square miles, it is not unreasonable to supposes that we need more vessels. Although there is a greater chance of catching something when there are six miles in which to do it instead of three, taking into account the time to get up steam, we nevertheless want more vessels.
One of the difficulties of the fishing industry that I have found over the last 18 or 19 years is that first one may be dealing with the Foreign Office and then with the Admiralty and then with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and

Food, and it is easy for one Department to say that it is another which should be doing something. This will not do after the Bill becomes an Act. When it becomes an Act we must ensure that sufficient sanction and ability exist to carry out what is in the Bill. Otherwise, there is no purpose in it. I suggest to my right hon. Friends that the Treasury, the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for Scotland must be pressed to ensure that fishery protection vessels are available to carry out the duties assigned to them and ensure that people do not deliberately contravene the Bill.
It has been said that the Bill will not solve the problems of the fishing industry. I do not think that anyone thought it would. This deals with only part of one of the problems. But it is extremely satisfactory that we have managed to reach this stage. I pay tribute to the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, for he has done a very difficult job in a superlative manner.
This is a Bill which deals primarily with a degree of conservation at a later date and, at the same time, gives our inshore fishermen a greater area in which they can fish without, we hope, foreign fishermen taking part. I would remind my right hon. Friend that, the fish having been caught, it is equally important for the fishing industry to ensure that it is used to the best advantage of the consumer and, at the same time, of those who catch the fish.
In this respect, I want to mention the dilemma facing the pilchard industry. We can catch the pilchards, but the question is what to do with them when we have caught them. I hope that my right hon. Friend and the White Fish Authority and others concerned will take due note of this and devise a means to ensure a throughput of pilchards by canning, freezing, and so on. A little more attention should be paid to this matter instead of putting the fish back into the sea, which is appalling when we reflect on the general shortage of food throughout the world.
I am extremely glad at last to see the Bill on its way to becoming an Act. I feel satisfied that nothing but good will flow from it. On the other hand, it will not solve all the problems of the fishing industry. I trust that my right hon.


Friend will remember the theme of conservation of fish and will not be forgetful of pilchards, which may not, in fact, have anything to do with Scotland, but which I mention in recognition of the fact that the Secretary of State for Scotland is winding up the debate.

5.8 p.m.

Commander Harry Pursey: This Fishery Limits Bill is another of the Tory Government's co-called little Bills, like the Resale Prices Bill, introduced to consume time left on their hands by the failure to hold in June the long-overdue General Election. On the face of it, the Bill appears to be a simple one of only three pages and five Clauses, but its two Schedules run to four pages, which is longer than the Bill. Also, contributions from hon. Members on both sides of the House show that the Bill is not as simple as it at first appears to be, and its passage through Committee is not likely to be as uncontroversial as was at first expected.
The Schedules go back for more than a century, to 1843, and cover all sorts of sea fisheries Acts, and various types of fishery—whale, salmon and fresh water, white fish and herring—and also steam trawling. I am probably the only hon. Member with a special interest in fishery limits to foreign poachers. [Interruption.] Does somebody say "No" before he hears the story? If he will wait for it, he will find that I am justified in making that remark. I also suggest that if the hon. Member wishes to make an interruption he should do so standing on his feet and not natter on his bottom.
I am probably the only Member with a special interest in fishery limits to foreign poachers, from the point of view of a Yorkshire constituency and also from a personal point of view, over most of this century. Early in the century, my father, as a Devon inshore fisherman, suffered serious loses of nets, gear and capital from foreign fishing boats' depredations in West Bay and Torbay and campaigned for reform and protection. If the hon. Member opposite can get up and say anything to offset that I am quite prepared to give way to him.
There is a second reason. In the 1920s I served in a fishery protection vessel on the East Coast and so have personal

experience of dealing with foreign forays within the prohibited three-mile limit. Can the hon. Gentleman match that personal experience?
The purpose of the Bill is to extend British fishery limits, to provide powers for the control of fishing by foreign vessels within those limits and to adapt existing legislation accordingly. For the benefit of the hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. Stanley), the Bill has nothing to do with conservation and nothing to do with the size of the mesh of nets.
British fishery limits are to be extended from the present territorial waters limit of three miles to 12 miles from the baselines for the first time in 20 centuries. In earlier centuries, this drastic action would have caused, a threat of war, because most nations have considered non-territorial waters to be the high seas and free to all. Furthermore, the Bill divides this 12-mile area into two parts, (1) the "exclusive fishing limits" extended from the present three to six miles and within which fishing by foreign vessels is totally prohibited, and, (2), the "outer belt" of from six to 12 miles wherein fishing by foreign vessels is permitted only if registered in a designated country which has signed an agreement.
The first question—and here I take up the point made by hon. Members on both sides of the House—is how is the control of foreign vessels to be exercised on these fluid and variable six and 12 miles limits? I will deal with that problem later in my speech. A general impression is that this dual idea is a new one. This is not so. It is the old idea of territorial and extraterritorial waters of earlier centuries which had serious effects on diplomatic relations.
The Minister may argue that this 12-mile extension has been agreed, or will be agreed, by conventions with certain countries, or, alternatively, is in reply to a similar extension by other countries. But what about the countries which neither extend nor convene? Admittedly the Minister stated in his speech that there are only a few such countries, but the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party stated that these countries had some of the most important fisheries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) has considered


the merits and demerits of the extension, from the point of view of fishing, and other hon. Members, perhaps on both sides of the House, may do so. Consequently, I will refrain from so doing. What I wish to do is to ask several questions as to what will be the effect of the Bill, which is far more important than appears at first sight.
It will not be satisfactory to the House for the Secretary of State in his reply to say that these are Committee points. There is only one operative Clause in the Bill, namely, Clause 1, as Clause 2 is simply a limitation of Clause 1, with temporary concessions. Consequently, in Committee the Minister will expect to get Clause 1 largely on the nod and the Bill in one sitting. His answers to questions then will be that they can be dealt with on Report, and then only a limited time will be allocated for that. Thus another Bill will have passed through the House without being properly understood by hon. Members and perhaps even by the Ministers responsible for it.
The Bill could have grave international repercussions, not only on fishery limits but also on cordial relations with foreign countries or, otherwise, on trade and industry and other matters. So it behoves hon. Members with a knowledge of the subject to probe the Bill thoroughly, and the time for questions and also for answers is now, on Second Reading.
Has the Minister of Agriculture consulted the following charts?
(1) The 26 King's Chambers which include, for example, Spurn Point and the Humber Estuary to Cromer and the Bristol Channel, one of our wider estuaries.
(2) The "Reserved Waters," with the 14-mile limit claimed by Scotland in its draft at the time of the Union I understand, of Crowns, in 1604, which included the whole of the Moray Firth. That is the important point about it and the reason for quoting the reference which, apparently, seems to annoy some hon. Members opposite. If they are not interested in the Bill, why not get up and leave?
(3) The 13-mile limit for the North Sea, which did not include the Moray Firth.
The further question is, are there any additional areas added to British fishery limits other than the extension of the three miles area to 12 miles off our coasts? Which are the designated countries and how many, so far, have signed a convention with Britain? The Minister in his speech, in answer to a question from myself, said that he could not give the list. But surely the Minister and the Government must have an idea of practically all the countries which they expect to sign and enter into an agreement with us. What is there to try and wrap a cloak of secrecy around in this? Why not let the dog see the rabbit?
Reference is made in Clause 1(4) to low water limits. Are these the limits of neap tide or spring tide lines, because in certain areas there is a considerable difference between the two? Nevertheless, I can still ask the question: what does the term "baseline" mean and are the baselines altered under the Bill? What will be the new baseline for the Moray Firth?
The Leader of the Liberal Party also argued this point and argued that the baseline did not go from the furthermost point on both sides of the Firth. Are rocks to be included—not the rocks connected with the" rocks and modders "? Are they to be considered as islands, and what are the increased areas around the Bell Rock in the Firth of Forth, the Eddystone Rock off Plymouth and the Seven Stones Rocks off the Scilly Islands?

Mr. G. R. Howard: The Isles of Scilly.

Commander Pursey: I am giving their original description, not the modern description, and this is taken from one of the highest authorities, a Government document of the day. I repeat—the Seven Stones Rocks off the Scilly Islands.
The term "median line" is used in Clause 1(4) in connection with England and France and the Channel Islands and France. I asked the Minister a question about that term, and he gave an explanation. Nevertheless, I still pursue the query which I wish to put. What is the meaning of this term and what is the increased British area around the Channel Islands, and how far does this impinge on French fishery limits if


France extends her limits to 12 miles? What is the position in the 21-mile Dover Straits, if both France and England have 12-mile limits? Admittedly the Minister also made a reference to this, but my question is this: after twenty centuries of history, are there to be no high seas in the Dover Straits for the first time? Are other foreign fishing vessels to be prohibited from fishing in the whole area?
Clause 2(b) refers to a baseline extending 10 miles. Is there to be a different width for the mouth of an entrance where the opposite coasts are held by different countries and where they are held by the same countries? For example, as the two coasts of the Dover Straits are held by France and Britain, is there to be a 24-mile mouth, whereas since both coasts of the Moray Firth are held by Britain, is it to have only a 10-mile mouth? It is no good saying that the Minister dealt with this because a 10-mile mouth is referred to in the Bill.
Even so, in all fairness to Scotland, where the Moray Firth is a highly controversial area of foreign poaching, why is the mouth not to be at least 24 miles, the same as in the Straits of Dover? Why is not the mouth of the Moray Firth to be the furthermost line which can be drawn from the two extremities? Presumably the Minister will discuss in Committee further details about charts, but we should have a clear statement about the areas which are included in addition to the present areas of the 3-mile territorial waters.
I can produce illustrations of charts showing fishery limits from the time of Grotius's Dutch "Mare Liberum" and Selden's English "Mare Clausum"; and our claim for the sovereignty of the Four Seas, which caused the open rupture with the Dutch and the testing by force of arms. It is of interest to note that the British argument of commanding the Four Seas continued until 1830.

So much for history and the Bill as a whole. My main interest in the Bill is, of course, a Yorkshire constituency on the East Coast—an important fishing coast. The Bill does not affect the long-distance or middle-water fishery industries directly but only the inshore fishing industry. My concern, therefore,

today is for the smaller Yorkshire fishing ports such as Bridlington, Scarborough, Whitby and Filey. Although we had an intervention by the hon. Member for North Fylde, apparently he has left us, having no further interest in the Bill.

These inshore fishermen have suffered serious losses of nets and gear and also capital from the numerous depredations by foreign fishing vessels even inside the prohibited 3-mile limit. There has also been a serious loss of fish by foreign over-fishing of both mature and immature fish. In future, foreign fishing vessels will be free to fish only outside the new 12-mile limit from the baselines, and between the 6- and 12-mile limit only if their vessels are registered in a designated country. They will be prohibited from fishing within the 6-mile limit under severe penalties of confiscation of gear and heavy fines—but not by the Navy; by the civil courts of the country. British fishing vessels should have the 6-mile area to themselves and the 6- to 12-mile area in competition with foreign vessels from designated countries only.

But how is the Bill to be enforced in respect of foreign vessels and how are British vessels to be protected, particularly—a point which has not been made in the debate—in low visibility and out of sight of land when foreign vessels cannot be observed from the shore? The present Admiralty Fishery Protection Service does its best with a limited number of vessels. Obviously, what will be required is an increased number of naval patrol vessels to ensure adequate surveillance.

In this connection, it is not necessary to use entirely the larger type of vessel such as frigates and minesweepers. Today we have the small high-speed motor boat and similar craft which are ideally suited for this purpose. Among reasons for this, they are of shallow draught, they can get well inshore, they can get from one place to another at high speed and they have not only wireless but telephonic communication. A number of these vessels around the coast could give a far greater measure of service in dealing with depredations by foreign vessels and protection of our own vessels

The point about our own vessels is this: from now onwards they should


require no protection within the six-mile limit, because foreign vessels ought not to be there. In the 6–16 mile area the number of foreign vessels should be limited. That is not to say that there will not be droves of them, as was stated by the hon. Member for North Fylde. These foreign vessels usually hunt in groups. They can be reported from our own coast stations and by our own fishing vessels. Swift action is then required by our patrol vessels, and the Navy can be relied on to do it if the motorboats are provided, to deal with poaching by foreign vessels or damage to the gear of our own vessels. Then what is required is smart action by the magistrates, by the confiscation of gear and heavy fines.

I need not go on and debate that point any further. Anyone with actual experience of how the Fishery Protection Service works knows full well that it would present no difficulty. It is simply a case of the officer in charge of the Fishery Protection squadron saying, "Give me the tools, and I will finish the job".

Our own inshore fishermen should have greater success, namely, increased catches, and also fewer losses because of interference from foreign vessels.

To sum up, what is required for the successful operation of the Bill is cooperation by everyone concerned, our own vessels looking after themselves and not getting into trouble with foreign vessels, our own vessels reporting foreign vessels when they see them, and the patrol vessels dealing firmly with foreign vessels. Once foreign countries and foreign owners know full well that, if they break the law, they are at serious risk, I suggest that there will be a reduction in this trouble in the form of foreign vessels fishing within proscribed waters.

5.32 p.m.

Sir John MacLeod: I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) that the success of the Bill depends on co-operation. I agree with what the hon. and gallant Gentleman said about protection. There is not much that one can say about the Bill which has not been said already, but I, too, would like to congratulate the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and

Food, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Government on at last reaching some form of agreement. I welcome the control of fishing by foreign vessels within these extended limits. This is certainly not before time. The Foreign Office, and probably the Ministry of Defence also, have been very fainthearted in the past or an agreement would have been arrived at long ago.
The Minister has power
to postpone for a period the date on which the extension of the exclusive fishery limits from 3 to 6 miles becomes effective in relation to the vessels of any designated country.
Which countries do the Government regard as having habitual rights? The Minister said that these countries will be designated after negotiation. I hope that the Government will be firm about this. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) rather gave the impression that we should not go too far in imposing a 12-mile limit against countries. Surely we have every right to say to countries which are already keeping our fishermen away and which have already extended their limits to 12 miles, "As you are doing this to us, you cannot fish within 12 miles of our shores". Or is the Foreign Office in this case also being rather faint-hearted, as it has been for sixty years, and restraining the Minister from doing this?
The hon. Member for Leith mentioned the case which was upheld by the full bench of 12 judges in the High Court of Justiciary in an appeal by a Danish skipper convicted in the Dornoch Sheriff Court in 1905. This decision has never been enforced. My hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Sir W. Duthie) will probably raise this point. We want to clear up the position in regard to the Moray Firth. I do not think that it is a case of ten miles either side, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman said. I understand that at present up to 24 miles is excluded to foreign vessels. I should like to see the Moray Firth closed entirely to foreign vessels. I hope that the decision will be enforced with greater force than it has been. Our own fishermen have been most disheartened to see foreign vessels coming into areas in which they themselves were not allowed to fish. Will our own trawlers be able to fish the whole Moray Firth area from which they have been excluded in the past?

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Does the hon. Gentleman want our own trawlers to fish the whole of the Moray Firth? What would he say if he were one of the inshore fishermen there?

Sir J. MacLeod: I do not want that. That is why I am asking the question. It is also why I do not agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the Bill has nothing to do with conservation. That is the most important factor in the Bill. The exclusion of foreign vessels must lead to greater conservation. I hope that it does. I hope that it will also lead to our own trawler-men putting their house in order. The Minister said that he would have power to effect conservation by our own fishermen. He has much greater power to deal with that now by extending the limits.
I am glad, as I am sure the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) is, that this will mean the closure of the Minch inside the Outer Hebrides and also the Clyde. This should make a considerable difference to Highland fishermen. I am not being parochial when I say this. It will make a great difference to the crofter fishermen, although they do not have much of a say now, because fishing and boats have now extended so much that it is a full-time occupation. That is why I welcome the Government training scheme.
I hope that the scheme, which I believe has proved successful, will mean an increase in the number of people in the area taking up fishing. I hope that the exclusion of foreign vessels will result in greater opportunity, particularly for lobster fishermen. Crofter fishermen in particular have been complaining continuously that foreign vessels have been coming in and taking a great number of lobsters out of their traditional grounds. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell me the position in relation to prawn fishing, which is now a big business in the North. Companies have been set up and are doing very well out of it. What will be the position of foreign vessels in the Moray Firth in that respect? Will they be excluded from fishing there for prawns and shellfish?
I agree that the Bill will help the conservation of fish, and I hope that it

will persuade our fishermen to put their own house in order. In our area we want protection not only from foreign vessels but from our own fishermen. I remember the day when it was possible to go out and catch fish for breakfast just beside the shore. It is not possible to do that now, because our bays have been altogether cleaned of fish.
Now that our fishery vessels will have to cover an extended limit their task of protecting our shores will be a much more difficult one. I would, therefore, like to add to the suggestion made by the hon. and gallant Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) that light craft could do the job. I do not see why helicopters should not be used to a much greater extent, in order to spot vessels that were breaking the law and telephone to the shore in order to bring quickly to the scene those light vessels to which the hon. and gallant Member has referred.
I want to see more experimental work being carried out, within the three-mile limit, between scientists and fishermen in a co-operative effort. I can think of many bays on the West Coast in which fishing could be prohibited altogether for a certain time, so that scientific experiments could be carried out in farming the fish. I hope that the Bill will prove of benefit to such research and experiment and that the Minister will take power to see that such experiments are carried out, so that we can discover whether the farming of fish is an economic proposition.
Those are a few of the questions that I wanted to put to the Minister. Again, I welcome the Bill. I hope that it will mean an extension of fishing in the Highland area, at any rate, because the days referred to in the old Highland saying
O that the peats would cut themselves
And the fish would jump on the shore
That we might lie on our bed this day
And for evermore
have gone. I hope that the scheme will be extended, so that more fishermen will be able to take part in it on the western seaboard of Scotland.

5.44 p.m.

Mr. Hector Hughes: I agree with much of what has been said by the hon. Member for Ross


and Cromarty (Sir J. MacLeod). I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) upon his speech, which was full of wise experience, derived from his years as a mariner and his ancestry, and also from his study of history. His was a useful contribution to the debate.
I do not believe that the Bill will provide a practical instrument to help the fishing industry. In my opinion, the difficulties of the industry will have to be solved, if they are to be solved at all, by adherence to the rule of law in international affairs, and not by violence. In this respect I differ from my hon. and gallant Friend, who seemed to want to rely upon gunboats, protection vessels and telephones, and that kind of thing. The best interests of the industry will be served by the implementation of the rule of law by those nations which are interested in fishing.
For example, I regard the North Sea as a lake which is fished not only by Scotland, England and Northern Ireland but also by nations on the other side—Denmark, Finland and other nations which have unfortunately been involved in some unpleasant incidents owing to the failure to observe the rule of law. In order to ensure the implementation of this rule in international affairs we require a really constructive conference which could form the basis for fishery legislation.
Earlier this year we had a conference which was a failure. The Bill is the child of that conference. Thirteen out of 16 nations agreed to certain principles, which have been enshrined in the Bill, but the Bill will result only in violence and in the breaking of law on the part of the nations involved. The idea in the Bill is to divide the problem into two halves by dealing, on the one hand, with "exclusive fishery limits" and, on the other, with the "outer belt". Within the former foreign vessels are totally prohibited, although they are not prohibited in the latter.
Who is to decide whether a certain vessel is in one area or the other? Are the fishery protection vessels to do this job? This is not the way to deal with the matter. The proper way is to bring together all the nations concerned at a

really constructive conference and let them evolve principles which can be enshrined in a really workable and practical Bill, based not on violence but on the rule of law in international affairs.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East, in his admirable speech—which was largely a Committee speech—touched on the problem of the split infinitive, if I may so term it—the exclusive fishery limits on the one hand and the outer belt on the other. That is not practicable. Because of that, this Bill is not a practical instrument wherewith to solve the fishing industry's problems. I ask the Minister to reconsider it. He will be able to give it some reconsideration in Committee, but he will not be able to reconsider the principle, to which I object. He will be considering the details of what I believe to be a completely ineffective instrument.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wall: The hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) disapproves of the Bill, and the hon. and gallant Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) said that it was a little Bill. I do not think that either of them has considered its effect on the inshore industry. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and the Government not only for producing the Bill, but for the way in which they obtained international agreement for its provisions.
I want to refer in this respect to a county I know well—Yorkshire. In 1960, British fishermen's lines began being destroyed off the Yorkshire coast by foreign vessels. Between October, 1960, and April, 1961, over £1,000 was lost in the destruction of lines at Bridlington alone by foreign fishing vessels. On one particular occasion, in the evening, skipper Cowling, in the vessel "Random Harvest", fishing out of Bridlington, decided to set his lines and wait in the vicinity for the whole night. He saw foreign fishing vessels approach, and signalled to them by light and by loudhailer. They paid no attention, but went right through his nets, destroying them.
In 1963, another Bridlington vessel, the "Lead Us" under skipper Smith, had actually shot 10 lines in daylight off Bridlington. Foreign vessels came


so close that they pulled five of the lines out of the men's hands. That was the kind of action that was occurring when foreign fishing vessels fished up to the three-mile limit, and sometimes just within it. They caused great loss and consternation to the inshore fishermen of Yorkshire and on other parts of the coast.
Not only was there the question of foreign vessels steaming through buoyed and marked lines, but there was also the abuse of trawling. Trawling does not normally take place inshore, but in recent years the habit has been growing among Belgian trawlers of two small vessels steaming on parallel lines with a trawl between them, and another line across their bows. Indeed on one occasion a British vessel got fouled between the bow line and the trawl. They are also using very small mesh, which denudes the fishing grounds on either side of Flamborough Head. In the great gales of 1961, foreign fishing vessels took refuge in Bridlington and Scarborough. It was quite clear then, by inspection from the quayside, that a lot of them were using very small mesh nylon nets—so small that plenty of shrimps had been caught in the nets. This kind of behaviour is ruining one of the best fishing grounds in the country, and it is also happening all round our coasts.
The Yorkshire Coast Resorts Joint Action Committee was formed in 1960 and my right hon. Friend the Minister met its members on a number of occasions. I am sure that the members of that Committee will fully approve of the whole contents of the Bill, which will do so much to safeguard our fishing grounds off the Yorkshire Coast and in other parts of our country.
It is not for me to talk of Scotland, but the Moray Firth and the Clyde have been mentioned. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will refer to the position in the Moray Firth, which in any discussion of fishing limits is put forward as the most absurd anachronism. The position is that British vessels are not allowed to trawl in certain areas, yet foreign vessels are. It is a complete absurdity, and I hope that we shall end it altogether by this Bill.
Another aspect concerns Ireland. I am told that under the Ireland Act of 1949, Irish vessels are treated as British, and

are, therefore, allowed to fish British territorial waters. But in the Firth of Clyde there are areas where British vessels are not allowed to trawl but Irish vessels, for some unknown reason, can. They are, for this purpose, considered as foreigners. In other words, as so often happens, the Irish get the best of both worlds. I hope that my right hon. Friend will comment on that, and tell me whether Irish vessels are considered to be British or foreign, and whether the regulations in the Bill apply to them as well as to foreigners.
Having said something about the need for this Measure, I want to refer to the Government's methods in obtaining agreement before introducing this Bill. The method of the British Government in calling a conference of 16 nations in London at the end of last year and the beginning of this year—and it is from that conference that this Bill has sprung—is in great contrast to the action taken by certain other friendly powers, such as Iceland, when it unilaterally extended its fishing limit to twelve miles.
I have referred this action to the House before, and I hope that I may be permitted to do so again. We must remember that when the Icelandic Government extended their limits in 1948 they passed legislation, of which the first paragraph reads:
The Ministry of Fisheries shall specify by regulations the limitations of the protected areas along the coasts of the country "—
that is, Iceland—
within the boundaries of the coastal shelf, in which all fisheries are to be subject to Icelandic regulations and control.
In other words, the Icelandic Government decided that it could proclaim exclusive fishing rights up to the Continental Shelf, and some Icelandic newspapers still occasionally say that it is intended to carry out that threat.
All I can say is that it is to the great credit of Her Majesty's Government that, at the end of what came to be called the "cod war", they got the Icelandic Government to agree to submit all disputes that might come about from further extensions of the Icelandic limits to the International Court at The Hague, which the Icelandic Government had hitherto refused to recognise. That is a matter of great importance to the


distant-water industry, and demonstrates how well these matters have been handled by the Government.
I have just mentioned our distant water industry and I believe that we should pay tribute to the British Trawlers Federation, and its members, who catch 90 per cent. of the fish imported into this country, for the way in which they have assisted the inshore men in their efforts to get this six-mile plus six-mile fishing limit. Obviously this is not to the direct advantage of the distant-water men. On the contrary, if we set an example by putting out our own limit we can hardly grumble when others do the same. In this case, however, the boot is on the other foot, as most of the other countries had already extended their limit to 12 miles before we started.
But due credit must be given to the Government for the way in which they have handled the matter, and have got the agreement of the majority of the 16 nations which attended the Western European Fisheries Conference. This is, perhaps, only the start—it is certainly not the end, because we still have to tackle the very important problems of markets and rights of establishment in foreign countries. Those matters do not form the subject of debate this evening, but I hope that they are in the minds of my right hon. Friends and that the House will discuss them in the very near future.
The Faroese, unfortunately, after the end of the conference, unilaterally put their limits out to 12 miles. That led to a quota being placed by the British Trawlers' Federation on landings in this country of Faroese fish and I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) that this matter needs looking at, as it has annoyed other sections of the industry. I quote one paragraph from the presidential address by Mr. Scott, the retiring President of the National Federation of Fish Fryers, at the Federation's recent annual general meeting:
By taking it upon themselves to impose a quota on all Faröese caught fish we believe the catching interests are assuming the responsibility of the Government of the country. And even if the Government seem prepared to acquiesce it is a situation against which we must protest.

I myself think that the action of the Federation in imposing the quota was fully justified, but I agree that it was a somewhat unorthodox action.
I emphasise what has been said from the other side of the House today, that a lot of good can come from meetings between the various sections of the industry. We tend rather, too, exclusively, perhaps, to consider the British Trawlers Federation, representing the bigger ships, and the inshore vessels, with which we are really concerned in the Bill, and we are inclined to forget the fish merchants and fryers and the various wholesale markets, and so on, in the country. The hon. Member for Leith was co-chairman with me last year at a number of meetings with all sections of the industry at which we tried to iron out some of the problems. I think that he will agree, and the industry as a whole will agree, that these meetings did show a good measure of agreement.
A lot of good for the industry as a whole can come out of them, and I hope that such meetings will be carried on, not by ourselves—it is really no part of the duty of parliamentary committees—but by the Chairman of the White Fish Authority. I hope that, once his recommendations have been full considered by the Minister, he will be in a position to carry on where we left off.
On the question of limits, I note that Greenland has put its limit out to six plus-six miles, as we are doing, and that the phasing-out period will last until 1973. I believe that this is a good augury for the future. As a result of the Western European Fisheries Conference, and of this Bill, it seems now to be more or less established that the fishing limit will be 12 miles. I think that this became fairly obvious after the two Geneva conferences. If we can now go further than just Western Europe and extend internationally throughout the fishery nations of the world recognition that 12 miles has supplanted the old three miles as the internationally recognised limit, we shall have gone a long way towards restoring the law and order to which the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North was referring. In my view, what has been done by the British Government so far goes a good way towards restoring law and order on the high seas.
Finally, one or two questions. First, the question of traditional rights. As I understand, Norway, Greenland, the Faroes and Iceland did not sign the Convention which arose out of the Western European Fisheries Conference. I gather that bilateral talks are now going on with these countries, and we hope to have an agreement with them by September. I understand also that bilateral talks are going on with Poland and the Soviet Union, which have enormous fishing fleets, with factory ships and all the rest. The agreement of these two countries will be absolutely vital. I know that my right hon. Friend cannot go into detail on this as negotiations are still proceeding, but I hope that he will respond to the comments of hon. Members on both sides and say a little more about it, because it is a question of very great importance.
On the question of policing the limits up to six miles and then up to 12 miles. I understand that we have a right to do so under the Sea Fisheries Act, 1882, and we shall now have the right to impose our own regulations on foreigners during the phasing-out period within the six miles, and later up to the 12-mile limit. Does that carry the right to inspect mesh sizes? This is a question which has exercised our minds very often. We have had no right to do so hitherto, but shall we have the right in future to inspect mesh sizes of all vessels within the 12 miles?
I shall not weary the House by discussing conservation measures. Both sides recognise that this is an immensely important subject. It is referred to in some way in the Bill, and I hope that we shall hear more about it at a later stage, and during this Parliament.
Finally, my other point concerns the availability and size of the Fishery Protection Squadron. All hon. Members have made quite clear that we do not consider that we have enough vessels in this squadron to police the 20,000 more square miles referred to in the leading article in the Fishing News of 12th June. Incidentally, it was pointed out in that leading article that this additional area represents about one-fifth of the total area of the United Kingdom. We have to police all these waters with a total of six vessels in the Fishery Protection Squadron. This is impossible. I hope that my right hon. Friends will approach

the Secretary of State for Defence about it. Obviously, he will not allow us to have a greater number of frigates or minesweepers, but, as has been pointed out from both sides of the House, fast motor torpedo boats would be ideal.

Mr. Harold Davies: And helicopters.

Mr. Wall: And helicopters, operating from modern frigates.
Last summer, from the top of Flamborough Head, I saw a large number of foreign vessels, over 200, fishing just outside the three-mile limit. One could see the fishery protection vessel come out from Bridlington. I am not decrying the work that these vessels do in any way—they do very good work—but one could see how this small motor boat came out slowly and the fishing vessels disappeared on the other side of Flamborough Head. When the protection vessel steamed to the other side of the cape the foreign vessels moved to the opposite side, and so back and forth, rather like a game of hide-and-seek. That sort of game can be played with a 12-knot or 15-knot motor boat, but with a fast craft it would be out of the question.
In its wisdom, the Admiralty, abolished the Light Coastal Force some years ago. However, we still have 50-knot motor torpedo and gun boats, and it seems to me that they would be excellent for this purpose. If manpower is the problem, I am certain that the R.N.R. would be delighted to undertake the work during certain periods.
Finally, the question of base lines. Will the Secretary of State confirm that British vessels can fish within the three to 12 miles? Will he say what types of vessel? Is it all types or only some types? This did not emerge clearly from the interventions we had earlier.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Noble): Will my hon. Friend clarify his question? I am not sure that I understand it.

Mr. Wall: I will put it in another way. Will all types of British vessels be allowed to fish between the three and 12 miles, or is this type of fishing to be restricted to line fishing only? Is trawling to be allowed? Also, will any vessels be allowed to fish within the three-mile


limit? When we have new base lines which close a large bay, will vessels be able to fish on the landward side of the base line, or, to put it another way, will any vessel be allowed to fish inside the bay?
Finally, a question which arises out of the Western European Fisheries Conference. At this conference, besides the agreement for Britain to extend her limits to six and then to 12 miles, it was decided that a further conference of technical experts should be set up to draft a convention on the lines of the 1882 Convention to set out a modern code of fishing conduct. It was suggested that the United States and Canada should participate in this convention. Can my right hon. Friend say what is happening about this? Has there been a meeting, and how far have we got? It is a matter of importance for the future.
Finally, may I say that the fishermen of England and, I believe, of Scotland and Wales, too, will appreciate the very great step forward which has been taken in this Bill, which will prove its value to all those who fish from the smaller ports of the British Isles.

6.9 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Crosland: I shall try to be brief, first, because I regret to admit that I do not know where either the Minch or the Moray Firth is, and secondly, because I represent a constituency which is mainly not an inshore fishing area; it is concerned more with middle and distant water fishing, and those parts of the fleet are not primarily involved in this Bill. Moreover, I shall try to avoid raising false hopes on the other side of the House by not following the example of the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) who said "finally" no fewer than three times.

Commander J. S. Kerans: Five times, I think.

Mr. Wall: If I said it five times, that was because there were five different sections to my speech.

Mr. Crosland: As regards the Bill as a whole, it seems to me that it would be wrong not to express some melancholy at the fact that it had to be introduced at all. Of course, one sympathises with the motives behind it, motives to

which a good deal of expression has been given on both sides of the House. But there are two reasons why one cannot feel particularly cheerful about it. One is that this kind of Bill both expresses and encourages a certain—to call it "a certain" is to put it mildly—nationalistic or xenophobic attitude in fisheries problems. This has come out quite strongly in some of the speeches today. One even had it from the hon. Member for Haltemprice that if was only British trawlers which waited for a fishery protection vessel to go round the cape so that they could fish within the limits. The hon. Member must have a naive view of how British trawlers behave if that is what he thinks.
Another more serious reason for feeling somewhat melancholy about the Bill is that it is a further restriction of the principle of the freedom of the seas. Britain, as the greatest of all seafaring and sea trading nations, has hitherto tried to uphold that principle. It is sad although inevitable now to see a further restriction of it. This principle goes back a very long way in our history, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) has pointed out. It was first enshrined as the No. 1 principle in British trading policy under the Tudors. The Tudors and Elizabeth I in particular were willing to go a long way in protecting the fishing industry. They enforced Lent and fast days and they restricted imports, but they were never willing to restrict the right of all countries to fish the sea.
The principle of the restriction of fishing rights came only with the Stuarts—with James I, who wanted to introduce a 14-mile limit all round our coast, and then with Charles I, who tried to claim the most fantastic exclusive British rights all over the northern seas.

Mr. Harold Davies: And caused trouble with the Dutch.

Mr. Crosland: Yes, indeed, he took the risk of an Anglo-Dutch war. For that reason, it is sad that a British Government, representing a nation which, for obvious historical reasons, has always fought for the freedom of the seas, should now have to participate in this depressing worldwide phenomenon of the extension of exclusive limits. One


must, however, be fair to the Government. They have fought against having to do this, and they have done it only after most of the other fishing nations in this part of the world have already done it.
Despite one's natural melancholia, one must, of course, welcome the Bill. As we have heard, it will give a great deal of help to inshore fishermen, only a few of whom I have in my constituency. One cannot use against the Bill the argument that many of us have used in the past few years that by extending our limits we weaken our bargaining position with other countries when they think of extending theirs. That argument may have had validity five years ago, but it has none now.
I am glad that the Minister justified the Bill in a straightforward way as giving additional fishing grounds to British fishermen and that he did not attempt to justify it primarily on the grounds of conservation. This is an extremely important point. If one tries to justify the extension of our limits on the grounds of conservation, one then has to do what a number of hon. Members probably want—but I do not—and to apply the additional restrictions to British as well as to foreign trawlers. One at once gets into the situation, which we now have off Iceland, of having endless arguments as to whether Icelandic trawlers are or are not illegally fishing within their own limits. This argument goes on in Grimsby the whole time. We have—and I am sure that they are justified—endless complaints from British skippers that the Icelanders, having justified their extension of limits on the ground of the preservation of fish, are now themselves fishing within their own limits—and, to make matters worse, impertinently landing the fish at Grimsby.
If extension of limits were to be justified on the ground of conservation and one then tried to apply the new limit to British as well as to foreign trawlers, one would run into endless disputes and problems of interpretation. If conservation is the aim, it should be dealt with separately and in another way. I am, therefore, glad that the Minister has not gone about the problem in the same way as the Icelandic Government did when it extended its limits.
I must admit that on conservation I have always been somewhat of an odd-man-out. I am a sceptic, not about conservation itself, but about a great deal of what is commonly said on the subject. It is a marvellous word, rather like the opposite of sin, to which everybody pays lip-service. But when one examines a large number of the arguments which are used in favour of conservation, they often tend in practice to be arguments for preserving a particular vested interest.
For example, people might justify the exclusion of British trawlers from the Moray Firth on the ground of conservation. This, however, probably has nothing to do with conservation as such, but would be for the protection of a particular group of fishermen in the Moray Firth. Arguments about conservation are frequently restrictive and designed to protect a particular group of fishermen. Moreover, arguments in favour of conservation frequently imply using less efficient or less productive methods of fishing than we have available to us. Therefore, I take a slightly sceptical attitude to much of what is said about conservation, without, of course, denying its great importance.
The Bill will, of course, be extremely helpful to a small part—the inshore part—of the industry. But it will do nothing to solve the major problems facing the 90 per cent. of the industry, which is the middle and distant water fleets. We were told a long time ago, at least unofficially, that the new Chairman of the White Fish Authority had put to the Government a major plan for the reorganisation of the industry. I should very much like to have some news from the Secretary of State for Scotland, when he replies to the debate, as to when, if ever, in the lifetime of the present Parliament, the Government will give their views on that plan.

6.16 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wolrige-Gordon: The Government have inspired considerable cynicism in the inshore fishing ports during the past few months as to the earnestness of their good intentions for that side of the industry, particularly in Scotland. First, we had the total prohibition of drift net fishing for salmon, even outside the three-mile limit; secondly, we had the


recent revelations of the Herring Industry Board when a whole fleet was forced to tie up when thousands of pounds of Government money were apparently misused and the whole thing was not discovered for six months.
Then, we also have the endless argument about the comparable level of subsidy between agriculture and fishing in a relation of about 30 to 5 and, finally, the well-known constant irritation which is caused by the sight of foreign trawlers fishing in our waters, often in our ports, with nets of a mesh through which even a tadpole could not escape. The Government cannot, therefore, be surprised at the depth of feeling that they have aroused among some of the inshore fishermen.
Now, at last, we have the Bill and the 12-mile limit. It is like Moses and the Holy Land: at last it is in sight. That sight will gladden the heart of every fisherman whom I have the honour to represent. The only significant gap between the horizon and where we are at the moment is, first, the Moray Firth, and secondly, the lack of any phased-out period of foreign fishing in the outer belt. We would like to have seen the fixing of a definite period of, say, 10 years so that by the end of that time, there would have been for all our fishermen an entirely exclusive fishery zone of 12 miles from our coastline or our minimum baselines. Apart from that, I welcome the Bill unreservedly and I congratulate the Government warmly upon the success of the conference which made it possible.
The Bill brings within our jurisdiction approximately 20,000 sqare miles. The question that raised in my mind is what we will do with that amount of water. What will be the Government's policy towards the conservation and development of our fishing stocks? Obviously, if the regulations which are brought into force concerning this new extension of the limits are strictly applied and adhered to, they will do a certain amount towards conserving our fishing grounds from the heedless exploitation to which they have been subjected for so long. Will they, however, ensure the building up of stocks again in our waters so that we return to the times of long ago when even a boy on the seashore could catch something worth while if he wanted to do so?
Every new development on the fishing side is directed towards greater efficiency in catching and greater productivity on the part of the boats. How do the Government view these developments? It seems to me that unguarded against and unguided, they could threaten all that we hope to gain through the Bill, particularly for our inshore fishermen.
The inshore fleets produce much of the best quality fish sold in Britain every day. Such fish usually comes from the smaller boats, often fishing with lines, which can get their catch to a market sometimes only a few hours after it has been caught. At present some of those boats find it most difficult to get a decent living. They lack the range of the bigger boats. At one time salmon seemed a useful possible supplment, but that was denied to them. Recently their difficulties have been intensified by the large number of herring drifters which have been forced to change over to white fish, flood the market, and thereby reduce the price.
If there were the abundance of fish which we should all like to see—and which I believe we can see again—in our territorial waters, these boats would be the best suited to land quality fish and benefit from a quality market. Conservation, therefore, immediately raises the question of development. There is nothing I should like to see more than the Government undertaking a definite programme of fish-farming. We know that it has been done and we know what it could mean. I do not know whether the Government are yet ready to say, "This is the future for the industry of the sea. It would provide work for our fishermen, factory supplies for our workers and good food for our people; we will back it."
Two questions of detail on the Bill. Is a person caught transgressing these limits in future liable to be tried in a civil court or a criminal court? What about pollution? I am not satisfied about the efficacy of the measures introduced to deal with pollution and the consequent destruction of fishing grounds in our inshore waters. I instance the position in the Firth of Forth. Either the measures are not strict enough, or they are not sufficiently enforced. I hope that there will be some improvement there.
Again, I welcome the Bill most warmly. I hope that it will mark the


beginning of a new era of conservation and development for our fishery stocks. Of one thing I am certain—the fishermen will play their part.

6.23 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: This Bill has been praised with some curiously critical arguments and criticised with some extraordinary praise. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) accused an hon. Member of piratical leanings and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) accused the Minister in his Bill of having split the problem. He was not prepared to attribute to the Minister anything else in common with Solomon, apart from that.
No hon. Member has spoken without misgivings, except perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), who expressed a lofty disdain for conservation—a disdain which I cannot imagine he really feels deeply. I think it must be merely an attitude of expediency for the purpose of the argument which he wants to put at that moment. He was right to say that the Bill displays the same lofty disdain for conservation for, whatever the Minister says, this is a great gap. The Bill does nothing for conservation, particularly for inshore and what those of us who signed the Neven-Spence Committee's Report called offshore fishings—a new division or zone between inshore fishings and the deep-water fishing.
The assumption in the Bill, and the assumption on the part of some hon. Members opposite, that a British trawler would never do the wicked things in inshore waters which a foreign trawler would do does not measure up against the facts and experience of inshore fishermen. We know perfectly well that the worst predators in the early years of the century and right up to the thirties were those from the often dilapidated trawling "slums of the sea". They did infinite damage to the inshore fisheries in those days. An hon. Member gave an example of how wicked foreigners had ploughed through nets and gear of some British inshore fleet. We had a case of that kind only a few years ago in which the Prime Minister himself was good enough to take an interest when hun-

dreds of pounds worth of damage was done, and acknowledged to be done, to Hebridean inshore fishermen's nets and gear, not by foreigners, but by vessels of a fleet from the east coast of Scotland operating illegally within the fishing limits. So our trawlermen and seine-netters are not as Simon, pure as all that. I think Chesterton said:
I knew no harm of Bonaparte
And plenty of the squire.
But we in the Islands have known plenty of harm from our own British trawl fishing interests, as well as from foreigners.
I was not happy with the speech of the Minister on one important matter. When I interrupted him he seemed terribly hurt. I asked, "Does this mean, apart from the protection from foreign trawlers, that there is no additional protection for our inshore fishermen of any kind against the activities of our own British trawlers or other vessels?" He admitted that that is the case. That will be very disappointing to the people in the inshore fishing industry all round the country. It may well be that we shall see a return to their old and less worthy activities by the worse types in our British trawler fleets when they find that foreigners are excluded from this great sheet of water round our coasts while they are free to fish at will. They will say, "Here is a wonderful opportunity for us to come in and have a go with no outside competition."
That is not purely imaginary. The same kind of thing has happened already in other respects. It has happened in certain areas as the result of such measures as this Bill being taken by other countries unilaterally. As our trawlers have been driven further out from more and more traditional fishery waters around the coasts of other countries, it was alleged that many of them have fallen back on to our own waters again, including the North Sea, which is acknowledged to have been heavily over-fished many decades ago.
This Bill is one of a remarkably large number of partial fishery measures we have had in the last few years. It is not only another patch on the quilt, but yet another patch on a patchwork quilt. Piece by piece the Government have been building up fishing legislation without getting a comprehensive picture of what is


actually needed to rehabilitate this great industry, and, among other needs, to maintain and assist the large number of smaller communities in the creeks, islands, towns and villages around our coasts.
All those little communities have in the past made a tremendous contribution to the merchant navy and to the Royal Navy itself. The Western Isles alone at the outbreak of the last war contributed no less than a quarter of the whole Royal Naval Reserve. We would not get that today. When we have not trained men as fishermen, then, when we recruit for the Navy or merchant service, we have to train them from the start, and that is a considerable disadvantage for all concerned.
I do not know to what extent inshore fishermen will feel protected by this Bill. I admit that we are extremely glad that measures are being taken, at last, to make it more difficult for foreign fleets to come into the nearer waters around our coasts; but I wonder if it is not in many ways a paper protection. The Minister has failed to show that he has any plans ready, or any resources with which to carry out plans, for the proper protection of this greatly enlarged area of fishery waters. But, as to real protection against poacher fleets coming inshore, the right hon. Gentleman has failed badly. He cannot dodge the issue by vague, almost mystical references to the doubtful largesse of the Treasury which, he said, would not allow anyone to introduce a Measure without supplying adequate funds. Indeed, he almost choked on the humour of that himself.
The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman has not adequately explained how he is going to police these waters. He now has a vast area of sea and thus a greatly enlarged responsibility for fishery protection and the prevention of depredations by poachers. What is to happen in the new outer zone? He has been asked whether there will be new power to punish summarily and to seize gear at sea. Indeed, one hon. Member suggested more or less that these people should be convicted on the spot and that their gear should be taken from them at sea and confiscated without any such nonsense as taking them to court. I thought that a slightly piratical idea.
Nevertheless, in order to detect and investigate, there obviously must be the right to board, as there is now over a vastly wider range of sea. There will, however, be as a result a tremendous number of slightly unpleasant interviews of all kinds. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North has pointed out, the Bill creates two belts or zones and there is to be in one of them a great number of concessions to certain foreigners by special arrangement in going after certain kinds of fish at certain times. The fishery protection officers will have considerable difficulty in finding out who is who from the various nationalities while trying to carry out their duties in the two zones and the three-mile waters. It will be a complicated job.
Our complaint is that, even at the moment, the Scottish fishery protection fleet is inadequate for the job. I emphasise that we are not saying that its officers and crews are not willing to do their job, or that they are not trying to do it to the best of their ability, which is considerable. Indeed, the fishery cruiser fleet is manned by men of first-class quality. What we do say is that even its present job is far too big for the protection force at its present size, and with the present type of ships.
The fishery protection fleet as it is now was designed for the days of the heavy, slow trawlers, mostly old and dilapidated, which used to scrounge around the island creeks and bays to make a living before the modern trawler fleets were created for distant waters. Now the cruisers are dealing with "nippy" little seine-netters and other fast vessels which have no less catching and destructive power but which are much more difficult to catch when breaking the law, and have their own signalling code for dodging the cruisers.
There will be a tremendous burden on the existing protection fleet unless the Government have at their disposal a surplus of suitable vessels to be added to the present fleet.
Before the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) spoke, I was wondering whether this Bill was an anti-Bolshevik spasm by the Government to deal with the fishing activities of the Russian fleets in the Shetland area particularly and sometimes further west. The right hon. Gentleman,


however, assured us that there is no feeling of animosity towards those Russian fishermen in the Orkneys and Shetlands and, indeed, that the people there would like the Russians to come ashore more often and do more business with them. I wonder if the Government feel the same about it?
There has been a vague suggestion that this Bill has a belated connection with the frustrated negotiations for British entry into the Common Market. This matter of a Common Market fisheries scheme was discussed at various times when the problems of fishery agreements came to the fore during the Common Market negotiations. If the Bill has ever had any such connections, then this seems to be an extraordinarily inopportune moment. Nevertheless, the Common Market fisheries agreement was a serious point which was raised during the long discussions ended by President de Gaulle, I hope for good.
But the straight and simple sort of question my constituents are asking this time—aid they are hoping for an answer from the Secretary of State for Scotland today—is whether the Bill really closes the Minch; and, to whom. I take it, of course, that it closes the Minch to foreign fishing vessels, subject to special concessions, but will have no effect at all upon any legal form of trawling or other fishing by British vessels of any kind from any area. Is that view correct'' I believe that it is. The Secretary of State agrees.
If that is the case, and the Minch is virtually closed to foreign trawling—which, of course, I warmly welcome—then the people of the Hebrides will still have to press now for more protection, not less, against intensive trawling by British vessels. I take it that if the Government are, in effect, closing the Minch, they are doing so by drawing the baselines in the North from the Butt of Lewis to Cape Wrath; and in the South from Barra Head to Skerry-vore and to Dhu Artach, in Islay. This will virtually close the entire Minch. I think that the right hon. Gentleman can claim that without qualification. That is what I pressed for since pre-war and in 1945 in the Neven-Spence Report reservation.
How far westward will the baselines area go if the Government intend to

pursue that extension and closure policy? Where will the baseline be drawn westward? This is a difficult question in many ways to answer. One thinks of the island groups beyond Lewis—of the Flannans and Monachs, then St. Kilda, up to 40 miles to the west of North Uist. What about Rockall, which the Navy brought under the British flag a few years ago? The maps, I agree, largely answer all this.
There is one point which perhaps the Minister did not consider sufficiently in drawing up the Bill. He seemed to think in his speech that there was among trawling firms and syndicates a great permanent hostility to closing the Minch, the Moray Firth and so on. In 1945, the Neven-Spence Committee, of which I was a member and which considered the white fish and shell fishing industries, discovered that there was not nearly as much general hostility as some people imagined. The trawler firms are not so generally opposed to it provided there is sufficient protection for inshore fishing from all forms of trawling. The Committee stated at the time, after consulting the trawler firms:
The trawler owners of today are quite alive to the social and economic importance of the local fishing industry to Scotland. They lake no exception for instance to the closure of the Moray Firth, the Firth of Clyde, and the Firth of Forth to trawling, provided that the British Government does not tolerate the operation of foreign trawlers in waters in which fishing by British trawlers is prohibited. The Aberdeen trawler owners would not object to prohibition of trawling in the Minch and other small areas in the interests of the local fishing industry, subject to the same reservation about foreign trawlers.
I do not think that we would find now a harsher attitude to the question of protection of inshore fisheries among the trawler owners, who are reasonable men, than we did in 1945.

Sir J. MacLeod: Is it not the case that before the war some fishermen had a closed season during the year?

Mr. MacMillan: The hon. Gentleman should never address me in a way which might tempt me into a second speech within one which is already quite long enough. I will, however, resist the temptation now. I was pointing to the unanimous conclusion of the Neven-Spence Committee after its discussions with the trawler people. I am sure that today they would not be opposed to


proper inshore protection, so long as foreign rivals are kept out also. I do not think that they are any more reactionary in this regard than they were in 1945.
But some time or other, and by some means—and I know that this legislation will not cater for it—we have to face the fact that not only must we have the courage to close certain areas to almost all fishing, except that of the local fishermen, and so try to build up our local fleets and help them to develop their capacity to do the catching which in the past has been done by foreigners and to a large extent by trawlers and seine-netters from other British areas, but also and at the same time limit the overall catchings and landings of fish in these areas in each season by one method or another in the interest of conservation of all concerned.
The Minister says, no doubt, that that would be too difficult; and no doubt it is. But there is the possibility today of a fairly accurate scientific means of measurement of the optimum or desirable catch in relation to catching power and to tonnage. There is no reason why this localised fishing should not be tried at least experimentally in certain areas. When the Neven-Spence Committee reported, I entered a memorandum on this subject and suggested that the Minch area should then be closed for at least an experimental period of about six or seven years immediately after the war to see whether, with grants and loans and other encouragement, including help with marketing and transport and so on, our local fleets could not be built up to do the work which, prewar, had been largely done, with little regard to fishery limits or conservation, by foreign trawlers and the trawling fleets from our own greater ports.
Another thing which the Government will have to consider is that fishermen do not just catch fish. They have to transport and dispose of it. Fishermen do not live all their lives at sea, like little corks bobbing up and down in the water day and night. They have homes and wives and families to go back to and they have a social background in their port areas like everybody else, even if it has been grossly neglected.
An hon. Member has mentioned the assistance given to agriculture. Even the crofter fishermen themselves get tremendously more assistance in many ways for their crofting activities than they do for their fishing activities. The fishermen feel that they are left out of it, apart from very limited grants and loans at high interest rates. The trouble is that none of the measures which have been taken to help out inshore and offshore fishermen follow through. They do not follow through properly to the marketing stage or even to the transporting stage. I have always believed that it is no part of the fisherman's job to go selling and transporting things. His job is to catch fish and he is a specialist at that job. But behind that is the fact that he is a human being with a family and living in a community.
I should like to see things done in the fishing villages, in the Islands in particular, to see that the inshore fishermen have all the equipment which they require for their already difficult-enough task. The Secretary of State knows how long it takes through his Department and the Treasury to get even the smallest jetty or pier constructed in the Western Isles or in Shetland. He knows that it takes year after year after year of negotiation. One which was recommended in the Highland Panel many years ago and listed in a White Paper which the House unanimously approved in 1950 is still under discussion today. The Secretary of State knows that this is true. It is true of a jetty scheme in my part of the country in one of those island estates in the Outer Hebrides over which he has almost complete control as proprietor. The trouble is that he does not have complete control of the Treasury. There is this difficulty which prevents the provision within a reasonable time of the tools and equipment for fishing and the amenities of ordinary, comfortable, modern living in many of these fishing areas.
Another problem arises partly as a result of the new methods of fishing and new types of vessels which are now being built and operated in the Isles. There is a tendency to want to centralise, to go to live at bigger centres. We all knew that this might come about, and it is happening in spite of the fact that, with modern transport, one can cross


any of the Islands and travel considerable distances by local public service transport, or car, or van. Indeed many mainland fishermen do, travelling at weekends from east to west and from the West Coast to their homes cross-country. Nevertheless, in the Island of Lewis itself, for example, which is not so very big, some of the fishermen in the new Hebrides scheme feel that they should be nearer Stornoway and that provision should be made for fishermen's houses in that area so that they would be able to live as part of the centre community, at the main port where their vessels can be berthed, sheltered, fuelled and fitted out. Such a provision—that is, of fishermen's houses—was made in that area many years ago and some of the fishermen feel that it should be repeated now for them. There are schooling and family considerations involved also.
I do not know whether it is desirable to encourage people from the small villages to concentrate in a relatively bigger centre like Stornoway, in the Island of Lewis. I would doubt it and I would resist it in many ways if it meant decline of the townships; but who is to tell a man that he must live in a village without a jetty where he can safely tie us his boat, which he would probably not be able to get insured if he told the insurance company that he intended to tie up in a place without proper weather protection or proper anchorage?
In most areas fishermen generally tend to congregate nowadays into bigger communities at the expense of the small places. One of the problems of the future will be to persuade the fishermen and their families, their sons, to stay in the smaller villages in the remoter Islands and in the Highland peninsulas. We will find this extremely difficult, and we will have to look forward more and more to the tendency to concentrate in what towns there are and towards the centres at the expense of the smaller places. It becomes vitally important to equip the fishing villages and organise their social life with better provision for leisure if they are to live.
The Government must some time come to the question of deciding whether three-mile limits or six-mile limits have any meaning at all within the wider belt of

12 miles in areas that should be closed for only local development. Perhaps this is something which we can discuss a little more fully in what Committee time is left before the end of this Session.
I want to say a word to my hon. and gallant Friend who spoke about fishery protection and suggested certain measures and to the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Sir John MacLeod) who suggested certain additions to the present fishery cruiser service. In September, 1961, I had a very full reply on this subject from the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor at the Scottish Office. I then put to him a number of ideas—not for the first time, for I myself and others have also suggested them—about the use of ancillary services and devices—helicopters for spotting, vessels other than the ordinary fishery cruisers, speed boats, based on the fishing bays around the Islands and the west coasts, and the well-tried methods of war time, and sometimes peace time, of vessels disguised as seine-boats, instead of the too easily detected fishery protection cruisers. We cannot understand why these ideas have been rejected every time they have been put forward when the Government cannot give in other ways the protection required in these areas.
At different times, I have suggested that for fishery protection against British and foreign fishery pirates we should have a continuous, preventive, control, pursuit and arrest service operating with fast, armed, powerful speedboats operating in the Outer Isles from Barra to Lewis, based in the main fishing areas with some local men on the craft—and the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate the importance of that. We also suggested that on conviction of the master the poaching vessel should be detained in port during the court's pleasure. Why has this never been done? We suggested that for repeated offences skippers should have their tickets endorsed and thereafter withdrawn for periods and that the owners of the vessels themselves should be brought into court and given full Press publicity as well as much heavier fines. I do not understand why the Government have been so touchy about that. I do not know why they are so sensitive about protecting the trawler and other owners when on every occasion the unfortunate


skippers—their servants—are hauled into court publicly and fined. We also suggested that poacher vessels involved in repeated offences should be distinctively marked so that they would be easily spotted and kept under observation by the fishery protection vessels. We even suggested the use of submarines. None of these ideas, apart from odd aircraft, has ever been adopted by the Government.
I have read through the Bill very carefully, and hopefully, but I find that for the inshore fishermen it takes us only one step forward. Foreign vessels, and therefore foreign depredations when there is illegal trawling, are kept further out than they used to be The home trawling and seine-net fleets can have as merry a time still as they have now. There is to be no interference with them.
The reason for that is as well known in the Hebrides as it is here. There are powerful lobbies, and powerful interests, which have influenced not only the Government at home, but, to the extent that this is an international question, have never hesitated to put pressure on our Foreign Secretaries when they have taken part in these international conferences and negotiations to try to get wider limits along with greater protection for our inshore fishermen at home.
The Secretary of State for Scotland may pretend to think that that is a myth; but I assure him that it is not. There have always been powerful vested interests at work. He knows about them, and so do I. I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman has a certain amount of sympathy with what I am saying, but it is a fact that until now no Foreign Secretary and no Government have dared to face this problem. The present Government are partly facing it only because, rightly or wrongly, almost every other Government in the world has dealt with the matter by unilateral action, extending its own fishery limits and exclusive zones.
I do not advocate that we should settle this problem by unilateral action all along the line. International agreement is obviously the right way of dealing with this issue, because by that means we avoid building up resentments and mutual dislikes, such as were building up betweeen Iceland and ourselves and might have arisen over fishing in the

Faroes, and between Norway and ourselves not so very long ago. Unilateral action leads to the feeling that everybody is trying to cut out everybody else, with retaliation and revenge; and the industry suffers as a result. The area of European waters in which our trawlers can freely fish is dwindling all the time, and merely to extend our limits will not solve the problem. Taking unilateral action may have some effect by hitting back at the fellow who hit first, but it will not solve the problem. There must be agreed limitation of catching, continuous conservation and joint protection.
My constituents would be glad if the fishery protection service could be greatly expanded and made adequate to carry out its greater new duties and its new purpose of protecting them against the foreign trawler and other fleets. But, according to the Minister, they will receive no protection from the familiar and age old depredations of the fleets of seine-netters or trawlers from the other ports of this country.

6.52 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard: As one who has campaigned in the House for nearly 10 years for the extension of fishery limits, I should like very sincerely to say "Thank you" to my right hon. Friend for the action which the Government have taken. I think that a great deal of criticism of this action is hardly fair, because there is no doubt that the proposed measures will do a great deal of good for the inshore fishing industry.

Commander Pursey: How?

Mr. Howard: I hope to develop that argument in a moment. I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will remain in the Chamber, because he mentioned rocks near the Isles of Scilly. I have sent for a map of the area, and I think that I have the answer.
The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) referred to speed. I do not think that he is aware that we have the power to board, and that this has been done. When a fishery protection vessel put a man on board a Belgian trawler in the Channel the trawler steamed off and left the protection vessel behind, for the simple reason that she was not fast enough. This is a problem which we shall have to face


to an even greater extent in future, and I shall have something more to say about this in a moment.
The Scottish fishery protection service is maintained by a separate department. It comes under the Scottish Office. The fishery cruisers which I have seen are much larger, and, I think, much faster than those used in other waters. I do not know the speed of which they are capable, but I hope that they are fast enough to catch these various intruders.
The hon. Gentleman's comments about the Navy and the Merchant Navy are, alas, also relevant to the lifeboat service. More and more difficulty is being experienced in finding men to man our lifeboats. For that reason the lifeboat service is carrying out experiments with a new American boat which it may be possible to crew with fewer men. This is a sad thought, but the problem is here to stay.
Many hon. Members have spoken about the need for inspection of the mesh. The only way in which we can put this matter right is by international agreement which will give any fishery protection vessel of any country the right to board and demand to see the size of mesh being used. If this can be done by international agreement, we shall take a step forward in the battle for conservation.
The hon. and gallant Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) talked about the use of fast motorboats. We must not run away with the idea of a kind of offshore power boat race, when the vessels skip from wavetop to wavetop. As other hon. Members have said, the Royal Navy has fast patrol boats, those in the "Brave" class, in which some of us have been, and which others have seen in "Shop Window". Will my right hon. Friend say whether he has had talks with what I still call the Admiralty about how many of these vessels are available or in reserve?

Mr. E. G. Willis: In the "Brave" class?

Mr. Howard: Yes.

Mr. Willis: There are only two.

Mr. Howard: I should like to know how many are in use, and how many are in reserve, and whether vessels of

that sort could be brought into use for fishery protection.
One hon. Member touched on the R.N.R., which is very close to my heart. I have repeatedly asked that members of the R.N.R. who carry out divisional training in coastal minesweepers, which are capable of steaming at a fair speed, should be empowered to keep a watch for vessels fishing in our waters and if necessary have power to board them. These vessels have the necessary equipment to enable them accurately to fix the position of a ship and determine whether it is inside the limit.
Several hon. Members have mentioned helicopters as a means of spotting vessels. In my part of the country we have not only the Royal Air Force in that area—in Devon, actually—but the largest naval helicopter training station, at Culdrose, in my constituency. I do not see why these services should not be used, where it is possible to do so within their training capabilities, to report an intruding foreigner, and possibly to photograph him, because that would provide additional evidence on which to base a prosecution.
I deal next with penalties. In the past, the penalties imposed on people for fishing within our limits have been derisory compared with the penalties imposed on our fishing vessels in Iceland. I hope that now that we have established the principle of increased fishing limits we shall step up the penalties so that they hurt. I hope that we shall impose the penalty not only of confiscating the gear, but of confiscating the catch. I should like to see the penalty increased to £1,000, or something of that sort. Word will soon get round, and will discourage others from doing the same thing.
Although I will not pursue this matter, I fully understand the special cases of the participating nations and why certain people have been given extra time in which to phase out their fishing activities. I congratulate the Government on the way this has been achieved, knowing the difficulties and possible actions which might have been taken against us. It has been a wonderful piece of diplomatic work and, looking at the map which has been provided, our limits in Cornwall do not


seem to come within the special category.
Mention has been made of the area off the north-east corner of the Isles of Scilly. I note that according to the map there is a large enclosed area around the Isles of Scilly, although there is also a small kink in the baseline between Scilly and Land's End. I would like to see this kink removed when we extend to 12 miles, as that way would be easier and tidier for all concerned.
Further to the remarks that have been made about Irish vessels, can we be told how the Bill will apply to those vessels? They are usually quick at denying us from their territorial waters and I am wondering whether prohibition will apply when they fish off our coast. Are Irish vessels classed as British for the purposes of the Bill?
Several hon. Members have talked about fish farming, which is not nearly as wild an idea as some may think. It is allied to the question of conservation. The hon. and gallant Member for Kingston upon Hull, East wondered how the Bill would aid conservation. He need only think of his birthplace, Brixham, to know that the inshore fishermen there will benefit greatly if, for example, Russian factory methods of fishing just outside the three-mile limit are prevented. Those methods entail a vessel fishing rather like a mining operation. Everything is swept out of the sea. I understand that even now talks are going on about the possible use of suction fishing, an even more alarming trend. The fact that these vessels will be denied these waters must result in conservation being improved.
I have mentioned in previous debates that the Russians alone—leaving aside the Poles and East Germans—have plans for up to 750 factory ships to be in operation. Those vessels do not include the trawlers which serve the factory ships. It can readily be seen, therefore, that anything which denies those vessels the use of this area will help conservation. Anything which keeps these factory methods of fishing and denuding the sea away from this area must have our support, and I recall that it is now many years since I first spoke of the advantages of fish farming.
On one occasion I went to see Lord Fleck on the subject of fish farming because I heard that I.C.I. was carrying out certain experiments, limited at that time to one or two Scottish lochs with narrow inlets elsewhere, into this form of farming. I hope that we will hear more about this method of production, because I recently read an article in the Geographical Magazine about future American plans for carrying out fish farming in the oceans. I hope that the new Chairman of the White Fish Authority will discuss this matter with the Government.
Finally—and I mean finally—may I say that this has been an interesting debate. I am sure that if hon. Members study the map which has been provided they will have the answers to most of their questions, particularly about the Minch, because that area is clearly marked. I thank my right hon. Friend, and those responsible in the Foreign Office, for producing the Bill. I have no doubt that I speak for all inshore fishermen in saying that it will help them a great deal.

7.5 p.m.

Mr. George Jeger: The Minister must be feeling pleased. He has presented a Bill which represents the inevitable and is being given full credit and thanks for doing the inevitable. That is indeed a satisfactory state of affairs from his point of view. One of the right hon. Gentleman's favourite quotations is that of Johnson, which goes, "When a man is about to be hanged he concentrates his mind wonderfully". In the closing days of this Government we are concentrating on a few Measures which will give a certain amount of satisfaction and benefit, long delayed but none the less welcome and necessary, to various groups of people. I am sure that the sections of the industry which will benefit from the Bill are grateful to the Minister.
I said that this is an inevitable step. It arises out of the discussions which were held at international conferences on fishing and which have been described as successful. They could not have been as successful as all that, because when one has a conference at which some of the major fishing Powers do not sign a convention, that cannot be called 100 per cent. successful. One of the chief


culprits in not signing and reaching agreement with us—resulting in this Bill being necessary—was Iceland. I always felt that we did not handle the Icelandic fishing problem in a way which could have brought satisfaction to both them and us. I always had the idea that Iceland, a small country largely dependent on its major industry, which is fishing, could have been approached in another way.
If we had recognised Iceland's sovereignty over her territorial waters, and then made an offer that she should license British trawlers to fish in her territorial waters, some agreement might have been reached. In that way Iceland would have had an income from the fish caught in her territorial waters, our fishermen would have had guaranteed their normal occupation of catching fish in that area and, no doubt, a trading agreement whereby Iceland would spend the income so derived in Britain would have resulted in some benefit to our manufacturing industries, too.
Honour would have been satisfied all round. We would have had the fish, Iceland would have been able to balance her budget and, diplomatically, we should have scored some points over the Iron Curtain countries which have been angling in Iceland's diplomatic waters. However, that was not done and consequently we are faced with this Bill, which is a retaliation for the extension of fishing limits by other nations.
The purpose of the Measure is clear. The Explanatory Memorandum clearly says:
The purpose of the Bill is to extend British fishery limits; to provide powers for the control of fishing by foreign vessels within those limits …
That is the intention. The Minister was candid about it. There is nothing about conservation in the Bill and the Minister said that that was not one of its intentions or purposes. However, the issue of conservation worries many of us who are concerned with the fishing industry. It will be of some influence in deciding whether there is a future for our fishing industry.

Mr. Soames: I am sure that the hon. Member will agree, in fairness, when he suggests that we have not done enough to aid conservation, that if conservation measures are to be really effective they must be on an international basis. I

am sure he will agree that very few nations, if any, have done more than us in the last 10 years to aid conservation and to arrange for a better system of conservation on the high seas.

Mr. Jeger: I agree with the spirit expressed in the right hon. Gentleman's intervention, but we must not be complacent about it and slacken our efforts. This is a most important issue which must arise whenever we talk about fishing. It is rather like discussing the right hon. Gentleman's activities in agriculture without at the same time talking about sowing and breeding. That is why conservation must always be associated with the fishing industry, because unless there is conservation there will not be a fishing industry.
There are various questions which arise out of the Bill, some of which perhaps will be answered tonight, and some of which may come up in Committee. I should be interested to know whether the countries that did not sign the Fishery Agreement will be designated and allowed to come within the privileged waters of the six to 12 miles or whether it is proposed that, when negotiations start with the other traditional fishing countries, they will be placed in another category because they have not co-operated in the signing of the agreement. Will they be regarded as having traditional rights or as being beyond the pale?
Another item that arises and which has been dealt with by other hon. Members is that of protection. It has been mentioned that about 20,000 sq. miles of traditional waters will have to be protected. I do not think that the Minister was very forthcoming in explaining how the protection will be operated. He said that the Treasury and the Navy authorities had expressed agreement that this would be all right. Would he tell us a little more about it and how this agreement was arrived at? Was it that the right hon. Gentleman just happened to say to his right hon. Friend, "I am bringing in a little Bill dealing with the extension of fishing limits and I want a few more protection vessels. Is that all right?" and that the reply was, "We will look after that."?
The Minister gave the impression that he had not gone into this in very great detail. He did not tell us how the protection was to be operated. Mention


was made of helicopters by hon. Members but not by the Minister, and I should have thought that that was a key factor in tracing the possible pirates in our fishing waters. He did not give us any idea how much the additional protection would cost. He knows that there is dissatisfaction all around our coasts at the inadequate protection that our fishing vessels receive, but he gave no indication of how that protection will be extended to deal with the greatly enlarged responsibilities that this Bill will confer.

Mr. G. R. Howard: I do not think that extra cost would really come into this. We cannot "cost" the Navy as such. Its ships, aircraft and helicopters are doing this job. They are in this anyway, so there will not be additional cost. It is only a question of getting additional vessels and aircraft to do the job.

Mr. Jeger: If they are patrolling already there will not be additional costs??, but there are many complaints that the present patrolling is inadequate. If there is much more to be done, many more patrol vessels will be needed, faster vessels, and more helicopters, and that will have to be paid, for by some Department and will cost much more. We should like to know something more about that.
What will be the result of this Bill? Will it result in less or more fish being landed at our ports? What will be the result upon the industry? We have not been told that. A little while ago we had a major fishing Bill which we all regarded as settling the affairs of the industry for 10 years. Since then we have had other discussions on fishing and this Bill, and I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that our hopes regarding that major fishing Bill have not been realised.
Many more problems will arise in the fishing industry: the question of marketing, foreign landings and, not least, how the fish will be distributed. We have been asking the right hon. Gentleman recently about rail transport from the fishing ports, and we have not had much satisfaction on that point. So although this Bill is uncontroversial and welcome as another stage in the life of the fishing industry of this country, helping it to be viable, it is by no means the last word, and the right hon. Gentleman, even during the closing stages of the Government, will be harried even more over the fishing industry.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Peart: I echo the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) that this is an uncontroversial Bill and is welcomed by both sides of the House. I personally approve of the Bill, but I have questions to ask and no doubt, in Committee, we shall put more detailed points to the Minister. The Bill arises, as many hon. Members have said, from the European Fisheries Conference. It seeks to extend the fishery limits, and also provides for the control of fishing by foreign vessels within those limits.
This small Bill, of five Clauses and two Schedules, is extremely important to the industry. I should be out of order if I trespassed too much into details of policy, but, nevertheless, policy has been mentioned and, indirectly, we cannot divorce policy from the Bill. I shall not stray too far, but ask questions which I trust the Secretary of State will answer.
Clause 1 lays down two types of limits. It extends limits for a distance of 12 miles from the base lines of the territorial seas and creates a new type of limit—to use the words of the Bill, "the exclusive fishery limits". The Minister explained this carefully, but I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) and the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) had a good point when they said that they would press for even more details. Perhaps the Secretary of State would reply in his speech to the points that they raised, or we may deal with them in Committee.
There is to be the outer belt of six to 12 miles. I shall not argue about the Moray Firth, the Bristol Channel or the Isles of Scilly, but I am anxious to know about the Solway Firth, which we tend to ignore. It is in the North-West and separates Scotland from England. I have a special interest here, because my constituency fringes it and I wish to protect our inshore fishermen, who have been through a difficult period. In my own constituency, in Maryport, there was a very prosperous inshore fishing industry, which has now declined. I should like to see the industry revive. Perhaps, arising out of the Bill, it will have now an added incentive to do so.
The Minister explained Clause 1 and defined some of the extensions of the exclusive fishery limits. I should like to ask


when we shall have the Orders which will arise from the Bill. The various stages of the Bill will take some time to get through. Is it the intention of the Government to act quickly? The Secretary of State should give us definite information. The matter is important, because time is running short. Soon we shall reach the Summer Recess, followed by a General Election.
I wish to know more details about the negotiations with other countries and on the whole question of who has signed the original draft Convention which was the partial inspiration for this legislation. What is the position of those countries which have not signed, particularly Iceland and Norway? I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) and for Goole. We should not be xenophobic about this. That is one of the tragedies of our policies. There have been difficulties with Iceland, but this is a friendly country.
I had an Icelandic colleague on a delegation to Europe and America and he has recently been to this country on a purchasing mission. He is anxious to extend trade between the two countries. Norway, by tradition, is friendly to this country. We may have had disputes over territorial limits in the past, but it is absurd to think in terms of divorcing these countries from our own fishing legislation and policy.
What do the Government intend to do about this? The Faroese have their own difficulties and the Minister has tried to get agreement with them. He met their representatives recently and there were lengthy negotiations. Do we intend to sit back and do nothing, or merely pass this Bill? What is the policy of the Government? Shall we reopen negotiations. My hon. Friends took a courageous stand when they dealt with this matter. We should think in terms of a new chapter, reopen negotiations and try by every possibly means to get agreement with this country. I trust that the Secretary of State will give a favourable reply to these points. The Minister said that conservation was important. I agree with those hon. Members who maintain that the question of conservation is not dealt with in the Bill, although it will be affected indirectly by the new Orders which will be made. The Minister referred to the North-East Atlantic

Fisheries Commission, which had discussions only a month ago, and spoke of the collective association for enforcing decisions on the high seas, and linked that with his remark about the Commission.

Mr. Soames: Mr. Soames indicated assent.

Mr. Peart: I see that the right hon. Gentleman is nodding agreement. May I ask for further details on this subject? It is very important. My hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) put the point forcibly and we should be told something specific. This legislation embraces other powers than those who have signed the European Convention.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leith pressed the Minister for more information about the measures for protection. How are we to enforce this legislation and provide protection? My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) made a powerful case. Hon. Members often disagree with the frank and forceful remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend, but on the subject of the protection afforded by the Navy, the history of my hon. and gallant Friend's family and his personal background reveal that he possesses knowledge on these practical problems. The Minister should have further consultations with the Admiralty. It may well be that consultations will take place with Scotland where there is a different system of administering fishery protection. There is a need for smaller boats and a policy backed by proper financial arrangements.
This is a very important matter which affects not only the foreigner, but some of our own trawlermen who may be fishing illegally—perhaps I should not use that word—who may be fishing wrongly in waters which are the prerogative of our inshore fishermen. Action will have to be taken. I have here a copy of The Fishing News and I wish to quote from its editorial:
Now before Parliament is a Bill which, when passed, will become the most revolutionary piece of fisheries legislation since the Sea Fisheries Act of 1883. It quadruples the area in which this country has full control in all matters relating to fisheries, adding, on a very rough estimate, 20,000 square miles to Britain's present exclusive fishing zone. This represents about a fifth of the area covered by the entire United Kingdom.


I trust that the Minister will not consider that the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Leith was a minor one. This is a major matter. I hope that it will receive adequate treatment from the Government and that we shall get a satisfactory reply from the Secretary of State.
We are anxious for further initiative to be taken about arriving at a conservation agreement in Europe. It is a matter which should affect not only Europe, but lead to an international agreement. I accept what the Minister told my hon. Friend the Member for Goole on this subject. Successive Governments, including the last Labour Government, have tried repeatedly to get an international conference on conservation. Everyone has stressed the need for conservation and the Bill may be regarded as the beginning of an attempt to stimulate action.
I was amused when the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Wolrige-Gordon) talked about the need to protect inshore fishermen, and remarked on the restrictions placed on salmon fishing. I hope that the hon. Member recalls that it was the Government he supports which imposed the restrictions, and the hon. Member assisted. I did not hear him oppose the decision of the Government. I recall that a member of the Government resigned from the Conservative Party for a period and we had what was almost a major crisis during the Committee stage on what became the Sea Fish Industry Act of 1962.
I hope that the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East will look back on the discussions on this legislation which implemented the main recommendations in the Fleck Report. It was hon. Members on this side who pointed to the needs of the inshore fishermen, especially in relation to salmon fishing. I wish that many more hon. Members opposite had pressed the Minister, because the Government had given in to certain interests in Scotland which were not purely fishing interests.
I will not labour the point, but I remind the hon. Member that we on this side have repeatedly stressed the needs of the inshore fishermen. My hon. Friend for the Western Isles, in particular, and even some of my colleagues

representing ports which have mainly a trawler interest, have often stressed the importance of the inshore fisherman. So we expect the Bill to bring the inshore fishermen some benefit.
I take the view that the Bill is only the beginning of a wider approach. The trawler industry said that the pact which has led to this legislation was a barren one. I have a copy of the Trawler Times for January, 1964, which has the headings:
B.T.F. condemn the 'barren' pact
'No effort to bargain markets for grounds'.
The Presidents of the two Trawlers Federations issued a statement which said:
An extension of British fishery limits is in itself of no benefit to the trawling industry, though we are happy to see any satisfaction obtained from it by the inshore and herring industries, without recourse to unilateral action. The agreement is, however, possibly discouraging to certain sections of the near water fleet, particularly at Fleetwood and Milford Haven, by restricting their fishing in waters near the coasts of other parties to the agreement.
I should like to know what representations have been made recently on this point by the industry. Does it still adhere to this criticism? Has such an approach been made to the Ministry? I myself have asked about this. When the report of the industry's conference was announced to the House, I asked the Minister whether this action on the part of the Government in agreeing to the Convention would not jeopardise some of our trawler interests. Perhaps we may have some information about this from the Secretary of State.
Although we do not oppose the Bill we realise that it is only the beginning of a new chapter. I should be wrong to go into policy about the industry, but reference has been made to a memorandum submitted by the White Fish Authority to the Minister. I should like to know the Government's reaction to this. It has been suggested by one of my hon. Friends that we should have another discussion with all the interests concerned in this country—the fish fryers, the fishmongers and all other sections of the industry. This should be done under the aegis of the Authority. This is a "must", and I hope that the Minister will respond. Perhaps we may have a reply from the Secretary of State,


because it is urgent. We could do this even before the Bill passes its final stage here. May we have an early announcement that the meeting will take place? The Minister seems to be smiling. I hope that he takes this seriously. I am always prodding him to do things.

Mr. Soames: I always take the hon. Gentleman seriously, but I think that on this occasion he rather misunderstands what his hon. Friend was suggesting. His hon. Friend was referring specifically to a limitation on imports of Faroese fish. The hon. Gentleman is now talking about the arrangements of the fishing industry from top to bottom, which seems a totally different point.

Mr. Peart: I accept that, but we are concerned about other imports besides Faroese. We should like a meeting of this kind about the whole question of import policy. It is obvious that it would help the industry. I merely ask that the Secretary of State should give us an answer.
If the Minister believes that the meeting should be restricted to the Faroese question, all right. That may be necessary, but if one is thinking in terms of imports, one inevitably comes up against a wider problem. Because of that, I would argue that such an investigation should cover a wider survey and deal with fish imports generally. If the Minister will agree to the appointment of a committee to examine the narrower problem, well and good, but I should have thought that an investigation into the wider import question would have been very important and useful to the Government.
I hope that the Secretary of State will give specific answers to the many points raised by my hon. Friends and by some hon. Members opposite. In Committee, we shall deal with some of these points in greater detail, although we do not wish in any way to delay the Bill. We wish it to go through speedily and to be put into operation as quickly as possible, and for these reasons we give it our support.

7.35 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Noble): The short but interesting and, on the whole, I think,

constructive debate that we have had on the Second Reading of the Bill has brought out one or two main points which I will just touch on quickly to begin with.
I think we all agree with the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) in regretting that the freedom of the seas for which Queen Elizabeth I, as he reminded us, fought hard is being steadily eroded until we have got to the position where this Government, and any other Government, would have to act in the interest of our own fishing industry.
The hon. Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) said that the Bill did not solve all the problems before the fishing industry. My right hon. Friend in a short but very excellent speech introducing the Bill, would never have dreamt of claiming that a Bill of a mere five Clauses of which only two are effective ones could possibly solve the problems of the fishing industry.
The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) said that to his constitutents the Bill was only one small step forward for the inshore fisherman. I would not agree with him that it is a small step. As his hon. Friends have said, it has taken 57 years of argument in this House to achieve it. It is slightly derogatory to the House to suggest that after all that effort, thought and work this is only a small step.
I turn to one or two points put to me by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart). First, he asked about the Solway Firth. This is, I know, close to his own constituency. A study of the map, which has been available in the Library, shows that there are two bay closing lines in that area which will give the local inshore fishermen a great deal more fishing than they have had before.
The hon. Member asked when we should have Orders before the House. I must explain that, as I see it, no Orders will come before the House, because there are only two steps to be taken. One is the creation of the base lines, which will be done by Royal prerogative, and the second step consists of Orders designating the countries and the areas in which they will fish. These will be Orders made in international agreement between the countries, and they will not come before the House.

Mr. Grimond: Has not the whole matter to be brought into effect by Order?

Mr. Noble: I do not think that it comes before the House. If I am wrong about this, the matter can be raised in Committee.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the possibility of continuing to get agreements with the Faroese, the Norwegians, the Icelanders and others with whom there have been some difficulties and disputes in the past. We shall continue to try to get the best agreements we can with these countries, and I have no doubt that the whole of the arrangements in the Bill are a result of the skilful negotiations which my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs conducted. We shall try to continue these with any other countries which are prepared to meet us and to discuss these problems.
I do not believe that the agreement which we have made is likely to jeopardise the trawling industry and its trade. The reactions which the hon. Member for Workington mentioned were the trade's first reactions. The trade will not be losing any extra fishing areas and, as I understand, while it does not think that all its own problems are solved it sees the advantages which I think all hon. Members feel will flow to the inshore side of the fishing industry, with which the Bill is primarily concerned.
The main question raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy), and raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House, was that of conservation. This is not specifically in the Bill, but we all realise—probably even the hon. Member for Grimsby realises—that there may be something important in plans for conservation. We hope that the North-East Atlantic Commission, which will be sitting and which includes Russia and Poland and other countries not signatories to this Convention, will be able to work together, so that while we are able to enforce within our 12-mile limit the conservation measures which we think are right, at the same time these other countries will be able to work out conservation measures together so that we are all adopting and bringing into

force the same measures aimed at achieving a solution to the problem.
The hon. Member asked me whether I could help him and the House by saying more about the designated countries. I cannot give a full list of these countries—this is impossible at this stage—but the countries with which we have agreed the transitional period for fishing, which indicates those which are most likely to come into the category of designated countries, are France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland. It may well be that one or two other countries will make a claim for having had traditional fishing rights, and these will have to be looked at. The countries which I mentioned are not being given designated powers to fish anywhere round the coast but only to fish in such places and for such fish as they have done for the last 10 or 12 years.

Mr. Harold Davies: From 1953 to 1962.

Mr. Noble: I will come to that point in a moment. It was raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond).
The hon. Member for Leith said that so far our fishing negotiations had been the result of continual unilateral action. He feels, as we all feel, that the Bill is a great advance, because we have at last obtained the agreement of 11 countries to the action which we have taken.

Sir John MacLeod: Does this mean that the countries with which we have agreement can do any type of fishing?

Mr. Noble: No. The problem of designation is still being discussed with the countries concerned. In the areas where they can establish a long period of fishing, for at least 10 years, for specific types of fish in a specific area, we shall grant them this privilege.

Mr. Jeger: Would there be any limitation on the number of trawlers which they were allowed to send? Would they be permitted in the Orders greatly to increase their fishing fleets on the ground that the area in which they were operating was to be made smaller?

Mr. Noble: I should not like to answer that with certainty, but I do not think that sensible countries would do


this, because they would merely fish out that area very quickly. As they cannot move from one area to another, because the designation area would relate only to their traditional fishing grounds, they would ruin their own chances. I do not think that this would be a problem.
The hon. Member for Leith asked me to say a word about baselines and particularly about the Moray Firth. The debate to which he referred in 1907 and the ruling of the High Court of Justiciary was not whether the Moray Firth could be closed by a single baseline but whether the prohibition of trawling applied to foreign trawlers. It was a slightly different problem. The Minch will be completely closed by base lines. The Moray Firth will have a bay closing line 24 miles out instead of 10 miles out. There will be a considerable increase in the area.

Commander. Pursey: The right hon. Member says that the Moray Firth would have a baseline 24 miles out. Out from where? Is that correct? Is the base line 24 miles from coast to coast? In other words, is it at right angles to the statement which he made?

Mr. Noble: I am sorry. The hon. Member was thinking of it horizontally on a map; I was thinking of it across, vertically.

Commander Pursey: What is in the Bill?

Mr. Noble: I mean the length.

Mr. William Ross: Send HANSARD a diagram.

Mr. Noble: The length of the closing line will be 24 miles and where that hits the coast will be the appropriate place.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Mr. Stanley) asked whether the trawlers from his constituency which habitually fish off the West Coast of Scotland could continue to do so and what was the position in the Clyde. I can assure him that there will be no change in the areas in which the trawlers from his constituency can fish on the West Coast. I am sure that they will get the same reception, warm or otherwise, as they have always had in the

past. His diagnosis about confiscation of nets was correct.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland asked a number of questions, and I will try to answer as many of them as I can. He asked whether the limits were inclusive. The limits will apply to all types of fishing—net, line, shellfish, or whatever it may be. He asked about the limits round Shetland. I am not absolutely certain about Burra Haaf. I think that the 12-mile limit, the outer belt, will cover the whole of it. I am not certain whether the six-mile limit will cover quite the whole of it, but I do not want to be dogmatic because my map is on rather a small scale.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the Russian boats. They will be able to come in to take shelter within his islands as they have in the past. I hope that they will take some notice of what he said and come in at Lerwick, buy some things and make friends with the local inhabitants.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me why we could not close the whole of the Moray Firth from Duncansby Head to Rattray Point. The answer is that under the Geneva Convention of 1958, to which we are signatories, that line would not satisfy the conditions and would be much more in keeping with some of the lines which have been drawn in other parts of the world and to which we have taken very strong exception.
The Herring Fishery (Scotland) Act, 1889, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, is being kept in force, because this is the Act which keeps the trawlers out of the three-mile limit. Therefore, it remains in force. The 1907 Act concerns whales. Whales will be brought into the 12-mile zone, so there will be a little extra protection to the herring hog. The byelaws to which the right hon. Gentleman referred will not be affected in any way.
Then the right hon. Gentleman asked about the Scottish Office vessels for enforcement. This problem was raised by several hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Mr. Grimond: I appreciate that the 1889 Act is used for prosecuting British trawlers within the three-mile limit, but the Act doss not seem to be confined


to British trawlers. Does it not need amendment, because it refers explicitly to three miles? Is it never used for prosecuting foreign trawlers?

Mr. Noble: Without notice, I could not answer that. The point is that under this legislation foreign trawlers will not be able to come within the six-mile limit. British trawlers will not be allowed to fish in the 0 to three-mile belt. Therefore, the Act is still needed to maintain its original prohibition on fishing in the 0 to three-mile belt.
I come to the problem of the Scottish Office's vessels for enforcement, The Scottish Office has its own fishery protection vessels, but it also has the help of many naval units from time to time as need arises within our own waters. We have used M.T.B.s in Scotland in recent months, as I think they have in England. We have also used aircraft. Therefore, we have done some of the things which hon. Members have urged us to do.
Clearly, it is difficult to forecast with certainty the problems which will arise as these new limits are put into force, It is not as simple as saying that, because 20,000 square miles are added, we shall need another 20 vessels to patrol them. There is clearly no point in taking action of this sort unless one can patrol the areas reasonably and ensure that the regulations are enforced. My right hon. Friend and I, in co-operation with the Navy, will do our best to see that this is so.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the date of the operation. Perhaps he did not listen to my right hon. Friend or understand what he said. The arrangement which has been made is that within the six to 12-mile belt there will be a phase out period of approximately one year up till the end of December, 1965.

Mr. Soames: It is the three to six-mile limit.

Mr. Noble: In areas with base lines an extra year will be given, because these are new areas of fishing limits.

Mr. Hoy: May we get this clear, because it is important? We are dealing with different periods. Is not what the Secretary of State is referring to up to

the six-mile band and there is the phase-out period for the six to 12-mile limit?

Mr. Noble: Yes. My right hon. Friend is quite right. It is from three to six miles for the first year and after that according to what arrangements we make for our vessels and with individual countries. Habitual rights apply to those countries which have fished for at least ten years in an area for a particular type of fish.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Sir Douglas Marshall), not to the surprise of the House, managed to work in a reference to pilchards. It is true that the disposal of fish is just as important as catching, marketing and canning it. The White Fish Authority has been doing a great deal to help the pilchard industry in this respect. We are grateful to the Authority. I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of both the protection vessels and conservation.
The hon. and gallant Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) raised a very large number of points, on many of which I have already touched. He stressed the importance of the repercussions that this sort of thing can have on diplomatic relations and trade if it is not well handled. The important aspect of the drawing-up of the Convention which preceded the Bill is that we have done it almost entirely by agreement, so I would hope that there would be very little chance of diplomatic relations or trade being disrupted.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman asked about certain rocks. I cannot tell him with accuracy about the Bell Rock or the Eddystone Rock. I was asked about Rockall and one or two rocks off the West Coast. The hon. and gallant Gentleman will see from the map in the Library that most of these are covered with their own limits round them, though in one or two cases with a 12-mile limit they are just enclosed in the main limits.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Sir John MacLeod) suggested that we should use helicopters. As I have said, we hav used aircraft in Scotland. These may well be a help. The position of the trawlers and our inshore fishermen in the Moray Firth will continue as it has been in the past. The Scottish Trawlers' Federation has shown


great sense and realised the importance of the area to inshore fishermen.
My hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) raised many points, on some of which I have already touched. I have said as much as I can tell the House at present about the designated countries. My hon. Friend asked whether the regulations would give us the right to inspect things like mesh sizes up to 12 miles. This is our intention, and I think that it will help in the policing and conservation measures my hon. Friend had in mind. My hon. Friend asked whether I could confirm that British vessels of all types could fish in the three to 12-mile belt. As I said earlier, the conditions are unchanged from what they have been in the past; it is the status quo.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Wolrige-Gordon) said that the Bill would gladden the hearts of most of his constituents after the set-backs they have had. I am delighted if the Bill does that. My hon. Friend would have liked to have kept foreigners out of the six to 12-mile belt altogether, perhaps after a period of years. He will realise that this was a serious attempt to get agreement on what has been a very difficult point, and we have got agreement. The agreement which we have reached will in fact help us as much as would keeping them out altogether. There are not enormous numbers of people in foreign countries involved.
I cannot tell my hon. Friend whether the stocks of fish will build up. I wish I could. I agree with him that the catching potential of modern fishing vessels has risen very considerably. But the mere ability to control more of our own inshore waters ourselves should enable the Government, and future Governments, to keep an eye on fish stocks and take the necessary action. My hon. Friend also asked whether the trials of people caught poaching would take place in civilian or criminal courts. They will be in criminal courts—sheriff courts.
The hon. Member for the Western Isles reminded us that all British trawlers were not Simon Pure, or lily white—I cannot remember which expression he used. This he knows from his experience in his constituency. It may well be that these

measures will not altogether solve the problems of many of his constituents in closing the Minch but they will go a long way towards it. There may be a few unpleasant interviews with foreign vessels, but the captains of my protection vessels are fairly used to this and, on the whole, deal with these incidents diplomatically and wisely. As far as I am aware, the Bill has no connection with the Common Market.
I am sorry that I missed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard). I agree that the speed of protection vessels is important. My hon. Friend referred to the "Brave" class of naval vessels. I am told that although they are very fast they are also extremely expensive to run, using 1,400 gallons of paraffin an hour. However, we will examine the position, and we will also consider the possibility; of using helicopters.
For some time the Irish vessels to which he referred have been able to swing one way or another to suit themselves. Certain vessels are registered in Ireland, so that they can come back into the Clyde and fish as foreign vessels, although our own trawlers are not allowed to do so. As I understand, all Irish vessels will now be treated as foreign vessels.

Mr. G. R. Howard: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for what he has said. I raised the matter knowing the expense, and also knowing that there are not many of these vessels. I simply wanted to draw attention to the fact that they could be used in a limited number of areas. What I am keen on our using are R.N.R. ships going on passage, and coastal mine-sweepers, which have the speed, and of which we have plenty.

Mr. Noble: I thank my hon. Friend for that advice. I shall use it in any discussions that may take place with the Navy.
My hon. Friend also referred to fish farming, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East. A great deal of research is going on into this matter, but it would be unwise to think that we have yet sufficient knowledge for sea fish farming to be a practical operation within the next few years.

Mr. Hoy: I gather that the right hon. Gentleman is concluding his speech. He has missed one important point altogether. I should like to know what the reaction of all this will be on the consumer public. I made a specific proposal to him, arising from the representations made by the Fish Fryers Association about the protection that they will have. Will he consider, with the Chairman of the White Fish Authority, arranging for a meeting between these people in order to hammer out their differences, so that these arrangements may work successfully?

Mr. Noble: I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of that point. I had made a note of it, but as it is not particularly in keeping with the provisions of the Bill I was going to discuss it with the Chairman of the White Fish Authority. I was not trying to do the hon. Member out of an answer.
From all the speeches that have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House it is clear that the Bill is welcome. Some have given it a warm welcome and others a more grudging one, but I feel sure that the House would wish to give it a Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Orders of the Day — HORTICULTURE

8.5 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): I beg to move,
That the Horticulture Improvement Scheme 1964, a draft of which was laid before this House on 13th May, be approved.
I suggest that it might be convenient to the House to discuss, at the same time, the Small Horticultural Business Scheme, 1964.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): That would be the first two Schemes on the Order Paper.

Mr. Frederick Peart: If we take this Scheme together with the Small Horticultural Business Scheme, that will be convenient. I would have thought that the Fertilisers (United Kingdom) Scheme was quite a different matter. It would be better to have a discussion on the first two Schemes and another discussion on the last.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I understood that that was the proposal of the Minister, if that is the wish of the House.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: That is what I suggested. I am sorry for not making myself clearer.
The House will recall that one of the major provisions of the Agriculture and Horticulture Act, 1964, was to provide powers for giving greater assistance to horticulturists and their marketing cooperatives. The two draft schemes now before the House mark a further step in implementing that policy. They are intended to come into force on 1st July.
One of these schemes—the Horticulture Improvement Scheme, 1964—is intended to replace the Horticulture Improvement Scheme, 1960, under which grants of one-third of the cost of specified facilities could be made to eligible growers and their co-operatives. The 1964 Act has empowered the Government to expand this assistance in three ways.
First, the Act provides for more money, so that a much wider range of facilities can be included in the new Scheme. Secondly, the Horticulture Act, 1960, makes 13th April, 1965, the closing date for applications under the existing


Horticulture Improvement Scheme; but under the 1964 Act, any new scheme may provide for applications to be accepted in the next 10 years—that is, up to 14th April, 1974. Thirdly, Section 5 of the 1964 Act empowers Ministers to give grant-aid to growers' co-operatives in respect of facilities for conducting markets for selling horticultural produce by wholesale; this assistance could not be provided within the powers of the 1960 Act.
The second draft scheme—the Small Horticultural Production Business Scheme, 1964—is entirely new and it is fundamentally different from both Improvement Schemes. First of all, this scheme is for the smaller grower only. Anyone wanting to apply for grant must fulfil the same minimum conditions of eligibility as for the proposed Horticulture Improvement Scheme, but there are also maximum limits, whereas there are none for applications under the Horticulture Improvement Scheme.
Secondly, the assistance under the proposed Business Grant Scheme is not tied to the provision of any specific piece of equipment, nor is it related to actual expenditure by the grower. Its purpose, quite simply, is to give small growers grants over a period of three years to help them improve their businesses. The main condition of the grant will be that the grower concerned will undertake an approved programme to that end.
Before I go into the details of the two schemes, I should like to deal with one major point which affects both of them. The House will remember that, at various stages of the passage of the 1964 Act, considerable concern was expressed on both sides of the House about the minimum conditions of eligibility for both proposed schemes. The 1960 Horticulture Improvement Scheme provided that, to be eligible under the scheme, a holding should consist of a minmum of four "adjusted" acres—glass, rhubarb and mushroom sheds counting as twenty times their actual area, and lights, cloches and watercress beds counting as four times.
It was represented to us that this condition excluded many viable small growers from grant, and we undertook to consult the National Farmers' Unions about the problem. Those consultations have taken place. We have discussed

with them all the possible alternatives to the present tests and we are convinced that there are insuperable objections to each and every one. It will probably be helpful if I tell the House of the investigations that we have made into the size of the problem. We are, of course, concerned with holdings which provide full-time employment for at least one man.
We took as the basis of our examination an analysis by the Ministry's economists of holdings in England and Wales producing any horticultural crops; many of the holdings were, of course, producing agricultural crops, too. We found that of these holdings, something over 23,000 gave full-time employment in horticulture to at least one man. But further examination enabled us to deduce that only about 700 of these holdings could possibly have less than four "adjusted" acres. And we are satisfied that a very large proportion of these holdings would fulfil the new minimum conditions of eligibility because they would have some part at least under glass or lights.
And the House will see from paragraph 3(2) of the draft Horticultural Improvement Scheme and paragraph 2(4) of the draft Small Horticultural Production Business Scheme that we now find it possible, in the light of modern practice, to provide that eligible land under lights, cloches and watercress beds will count six times instead of four times, as under the 1960 Scheme, its actual area. So some growers will more easily be able to fulfil the minimum conditions of the schemes.
I hope that the House will agree, therefore, that we have gone into this problem very thoroughly. I am glad to say that the unions are satisfied that the present method of determining minimum eligibility is the most fair and reasonable and practicable that can be devised.

Mr. William Ross: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say whether specific inquiries were made in Scotland in the same way as they were made in England?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: As far as I understand, specific inquiries were not made in Scotland into the exact number of holdings, but I will certainly write to the hon. Member on this matter. I can assure him that the Scottish unions, too, are


quite satisfied that the method of determination is the most reasonable and satisfactory possible. They also agree that it would be unworkable to attempt to introduce minimum conditions of eligibility, either on the basis of a standard man-day test or of actual profitability of the holding, which were two of the other methods we looked into.
I turn, now, to the detail of the proposed Horticulture Improvement Scheme. This is basically on the same lines as the 1960 scheme, but I should draw attention to the major changes. Apart from the change in the multiplication factor for lights, and so on, which I have already mentioned, we have—on technical advice—relaxed the conditions of eligibility for land on which vegetables are grown. To be eligible, land of this sort must be used intensively; and this was interpreted under the 1960 scheme as meaning that at least one-half of the land must be double-cropped. We are now satisfied that it is sufficient for one-third of the land to be double-cropped. Paragraph 5(1,b) provides for grant-aiding facilities for the conducting of markets by growers' co-operatives and there are no further major points until we come to the Schedule.
The Schedule incorporates all the facilities which were eligible for grant-aid under the 1960 scheme; but it also adds very considerably to the range, especially on the production side. In preparing this list we have gone to considerable lengths to ensure that we have covered the ground adequately. We have consulted all our C.A.E.C.S, representatives of the growers, our advisory staff and, through them, research and other organisations in the country that are concerned with the development of equipment for horticulture; and, of course, we have closely examined all the suggestions that have been put to us by hon. Members. In general, we have taken the line that only worth-while specialist equipment which is not quickly expendable or easily diverted to some other use should be included in the Schedule.
These new facilities are very extensive indeed. Paragraph 1, for example, provides for the replacement, reconstruction and improvement of glasshouses, mushroom and rhubarb sheds; paragraph 4 for the supply of new heating systems

as well as the improvement of such systems; paragraph 8 for the improvement of watercress beds. Paragraphs 9 and 10 are completely new, and embrace a very wide range indeed of equipment and machinery for production. There is also a number of additions to Part II of the Schedule, and Part III is extended to provide for facilities for conducting markets.
The list does not include a number of items such as fork lift trucks and non-specialist machinery for packing and pre-packing. These, I am afraid, present exceptional difficulty because they could be easily diverted to activities in no way connected with horticulture. To the extent that this might happen the scheme would be brought into disrepute. Not could we effectively guard against this by any means. Indeed, any attempt at policing the very complicated arrangements we should have to introduce would divert to this unproductive purpose staff badly needed to forward the progress of the scheme. I may add that we have discussed this with the representatives of the industry, and that they fully accept the reasons which have led us to the conclusion that equipment liable to diversion to other industries should not be grant-aided under the scheme.

Mr. George Jeger: Can the hon. Gentleman explain how packing tables can be prevented from being used for any other purpose?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, a packing table is specialist equipment; it is not just a table such as we have in the house. There are a great many attachments on it. Of course, if one carries the principle too far, one could imagine all sorts of equipment being adapted with a fair amount of work. But this is specialist equipment, and not moveable items like fork lift trucks. We have tried to include all types of equipment in all the ranges we can where we think that it is specialist enough, with its attachments and so on, to be used solely in the horticultural business.
As to the proposed Small Horticultural Production Business Scheme, the basic conditions of eligibility are similar to those for the proposed Horticulture Improvement Scheme, except that a maximum size as well as a minimum


size is laid down. Paragraph 2(3) of the scheme provides that there must be not more than 15 "adjusted" eligible acres in the holding, and that the total area of the holding—including any agricultural land—is not more than 30 statute acres. This latter provision is designed to exclude the grower who is primarily a farmer.
Paragraph 3 provides that grant will be at the rate of £50 for each "adjusted" acre up to a maximum of £500 and that the grant will be payable in four equal instalments—two in the first year of the approved programme, and the other two at the end of the second and third years of the programme. The grower will be able to use this money as he thinks fit—always provided, of course, that he carries out the approved programme or that he gets prior approval to any change that he wants to make in it. The grant should make it easier for a small man to switch from one crop to another—for example, by helping to tide him over any period when his income may be reduced in consequence of the switch. Or he will be able to use the grant to buy new equipment or new stock.
In general, we intend to be as flexible as we can, and encourage the grower to use the business management advice that is freely available to him from the N.A.A.S. and the equivalent advisory services in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Sir Douglas Marshall: Can my hon. Friend say whether estimates have been made of how many people will be likely to apply for the scheme?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am sure that my hon. Friend is asking this in connection with whether we have a sufficiency of staff to cover the scheme. If he will bear with me, I will come to that point in a minute. He will realise that as things now stand a worthwhile estimate cannot yet be made of the total that will be spent on the scheme.
I hope that I have demonstrated that the Government have fulfilled their undertakings in preparing these proposals. We have worked in the closest co-operation with representatives of the industry, and I pay a tribute to the co-operation which we have at all times had from them.
I come now to the point about staffing, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Sir Douglas Marshall) raised a

moment or two ago. I know that there has been anxiety about whether the N.A.A.S. will be able to cope with the calls upon its time in dealing with applications under the schemes. We are recruiting as fast as we can with the aim of increasing the number of horticultural advisers in the advisory service by 15 or 16 per cent. Also, we are aiming at a 10 per cent. increase in the number of specialist officers dealing with such matters as glasshouse heating and machinery.
But, of course, suitably qualified recruits are not easy to find, as the House will appreciate, and we must not allow the high standards of our advisory service and staff to be lowered. We must, therefore, make sure that the skill and knowledge of our advisory officers is used to the full. With this aim in view—my hon. Friend will be glad to know this—we are recruiting 30 or 40 field assistants who will undertake work which does not require the qualifications demanded of the fully qualified advisory officers.
I assure the House that we are doing everything possible to strengthen the advisory service and that, in any event, its staff will be able to meet the demands which will come upon them as a result of these two schemes.
With this explanation, I commend these two very important schemes to the House. They represent a considerable advance in the Government's assistance to the horticultural industry.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Peart: These schemes are important, and we support them. We have pressed for legislation of this kind, and we sought to improve the Agriculture and Horticulture Bill, 1964, with that object in view. It should be noted that quite considerable expenditure is involved; the schemes will involve not £8 million, as hitherto, but £24 million. However, we are all anxious that aid should be given to the industry. We want to see units made more viable and the industry itself placed in a much better competitive position.
As all hon. Members know, the horticultural industry has gone through a very difficult period. There was the danger that the flood of imports from Europe could produce a situation leading to


bankruptcy or, at least, a serious crisis for many of our producers. It was for this reason that, throughout the Committee stage of the Bill, which became the Agriculture and Horticulture Act, 1964, my hon. Friends sought to improve its administration. We sought assurances from the Minister that any schemes which he thereafter presented would be adequate. This evening, we are discussing the two schemes.
The main point of our argument in Committee was that there should be flexibility. I have here the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee stage, and it shows that our plea was reinforced by speeches from both sides. I am glad to see here this evening the hon. Members for Worcestershire, South (Sir P. Agnew), for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard), for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior), and for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells), who all pleaded for flexibility. In fact, this was an old argument which had been pressed both before the Second Reading, at the time of the 1960 Act, and on the Second Reading of the Bill itself. Many of us felt that a scheme which laid down conditions for adjusted acres was too rigid, and we had a major debate in Committee about it. In the end, I advised my hon. Friends not to press the Amendment which had been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hilton)—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order, I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he has put me in a little difficulty. He cannot now discuss what went on in Committee on the 1964 Bill. A little bit by way of background is all right on these schemes, but not a recapitulation of old debates.

Mr. Peart: I am only seeking to illustrate the importance of these schemes, which arise out of the legislation which we were then discussing, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Our main argument was designed to extract from the Minister an assurance that he would conduct a survey before presenting any schemes. I have here a copy of HANSARD which reports the debates dealing with that precise point. The Minister promised an investigation. From what the hon. Gentleman has said this evening, it seems that for England and Wales the

Minister did conduct a thorough investigation, but my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) was quite right to ask what had been done in Scotland. It is not sufficient just to have a survey in England and Wales. After all, my hon. Friends from Scotland have a responsibility in this matter. These schemes represent a joint effort by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister in England. I hope that I am not out of order, therefore, in showing that these schemes arise from some of the debates which we had in Committee on the 1964 Bill and the promises which we were then given.
I recommend my hon. Friends not to oppose these schemes. I think that the Government have generally sought a compromise here. I have always argued that there should be flexibility, and I think that the schemes will give it. I am glad that the Minister has had conversations with the various interests concerned. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that there had been talks with the National Farmers' Union about what alternatives could be presented. These discussions, together with the Minister's own survey, lead him to the conclusion that the problem was really insuperable. The Minister must impose restrictions. There must be a minimum and, probably, in the case of small businesses, a maximum. Generally, therefore, I regard the schemes as reasonable and acceptable.
I am sure that there will be some criticisms here and there. I think that the hon. Member for Lowestoft—

Mr. J. M. L. Prior: Oh, dear.

Mr. Peart: I am sorry to provoke the hon. Gentleman. He made a very eloquent speech about bee-keeping and the importance of pollination. He wanted this very matter to be included in the scheme which we are now considering. His speech in moving an Amendment to provide that aid should be given to a small business for this purpose is recorded in HANSARD. I thought his argument reasonable, and the Parliamentary Secretary gave an assurance that it would be considered. He said:
Pollination by bees could, therefore, be included in a scheme under the Clause.


I am just quoting these words to show what was said in response to the hon. Member for Lowestoft, whose argument was supported by other hon. Members. The Minister promised that it would be considered. It might be reasonable to ask the Minister whether it was considered and why it has not been included in the scheme which is before us.

Mr. John Wells: I do not want to be tediously repetitive about what we have already covered to a large extent in Committee, but it will be within the recollection of hon. Members that bees, on which we were all very keen, were described as livestock and, therefore, were inadmissible. This was made clear to us all, although everybody who has horticultural interests at heart is enthusiastic about it. Hon. Members on both sides pressed the point. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) is wandering rather far when he talks about livestock.

Mr. Peart: No, I am not, because it is on record that the Minister said that he would consider it. He said that
Pollination by bees could … be included in a scheme under the Clause".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 30th January, 1964; c. 228.]
I was not thinking so much of the production side of honey, which was mentioned during debate, as in terms of how we could help bee-keepers in some way, because their activities are important to fruit growing. That was stressed by the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South. I merely said that the Minister who has presented the schemes stated that pollination by bees could be included in a scheme under Clause 1.
However, I leave it at that, because I wish to come to another point that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, South (Mr. A. E. Oram), who put forward the view that the schemes should include the provision of buildings and the erection of amenities, My hon. Friend argued that any scheme presented should include appropriate provisions for installing heating equipment, rest rooms, lavatories, canteens and office equipment such as are reasonably required for the efficient conduct of a business and the welfare of its employees. Again, the Minister gave an assurance. He said that existing schemes,

even the 1960 scheme, could meet the case put forward by my hon. Friend.
I have read carefully the details of the main Horticultural Improvement Scheme, which covers a wide range of activities. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger), they are extensive. They provide works for the replacement, reconstruction or improvement of permanent buildings, including parts of buildings. The scheme also provides for works for the supply, installation, reconstruction or alteration or other improvement of systems, for the production and distribution of heat in buildings, and so on. Throughout the various pages of the scheme and going on to Part II of the First Schedule, there are a series of works which cover heating, and so on, for dwelling-houses, and also water supply. Aid is also provided for plant and equipment for the control of temperature or atmosphere, plant and equipment for preparation and for packing and miscellaneous equipment. I should like to know whether the amenities that were mentioned by my hon. Friend are covered in the scheme. I hope that when the Minister replies, he will mention this. This is an important matter, because an assurance was given.
I accept the schemes. In Committee I tried, as did my hon. Friends who supported me, to improve the legislation and to press the Minister to promise that he would widen the 1960 scheme. This has been done. Our case has been met. Although we do not have full flexibility for the reasons which have been put forward by the Minister tonight, I regard these schemes as adequate. The main question will be how they are to operate.
A burden will undoubtedly be imposed upon the officers of the N.A.A.S., who have done a fine job. They are a nationalised service, so I trust that no hon. Member on the Government side will be so doctrinal as to support the stupid remarks of the Prime Minister about the junkyard of nationalisation. Here is a fine nationalised service in agriculture. In horticulture, it is to be extended. We are to have a 15 per cent. increase in the horticultural advisers, another increase of 10 per cent. in our specialist advisers and 30 field assistants. I support this fine nationalised


service, which has given so much aid to agriculture and horticulture. [Interruption.] Of course it is a nationalised service. The N.A.A.S. is a fine advisory service which gives aid to private industry.
I am rather surprised that hon. Members opposite should be so touchy about a service which is run by the community for the community and paid for by the community out of Exchequer aid. The service itself deserves praise. We are glad that the Minister is to extend it. We shall certainly wish to give it all financial assistance. In the end this service can determine the success or lack of success of these major schemes which can help many small producers who in the past have been in considerable difficulty. Therefore, we give the schemes our whole-hearted support.

8.36 p.m.

Sir Douglas Marshall: I shall not go into the long story about nationalisation. There is a great difference between someone giving excellent advice and something which has to make a profit or a loss. I have risen, literally for only a few moments, to speak about these two schemes.
As the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) quite rightly said, the amount going to the horticultural industry is being raised from about £8 million to £24 million. That is a very considerable sum with which to help the industry. I have only one fear. Possibly I need not have it, but I wish to ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary if he thinks there is a necessity for me to have it. I realise that under the schemes when anyone goes to the National Agricultural Advisory Service he will be given every help possible, but I still believe that in a great many cases small horticulturists are unaware of the help they can obtain. How we are to get out of this dilemma I do not know. The National Agricultural Advisory Service and representatives of the Ministry will give every help, but they cannot give that help until they are asked for it.
I suggest that there should be distribution of some very small paper which could find its way to every horticulturist.

This would not be costly as I suggest only a very small publication. These schemes are splendid. I hope that horticulturists will take fully advantage of them and recognise the help which this Government are giving to them.

8.39 p.m.

Mr. Harold Davies: We have listened with interest to this discussion and none of us wants to belabour the point. We welcome these schemes. The Minister made it apparent to the House that he was aware of the substantial increase from £8 million to about £24 million. It will be necessary to spend that money carefully and to watch the way in which it is spent, for it is taxpayers' money.
I shall not continue the argument about whether this is nationalisation or not, but whatever Government are in power we must see that British horticulture gets a squarer deal than it has had. That goes for the flower industry also. It is necessary if the industry is to be able to stand up to the incisive competition from the Common Market countries and elsewhere.
I see that, under the Small Horticultural Producton Business Scheme, the amount can be paid by instalments by the Ministry. Why is this? Suppose that a horticulturist in a small business obtains a loan of £100. Does the instalment proposal mean that he will get 50 per cent. at once and that the rest will be held back as a kind of sanction to ensure that the work is being carried out?
We are all pleased that the period has been extended from April, 1965, to April, 1974. This will enable horticulturists to reorganise their industry. In addition, it means that young men will be able to consider this industry for apprenticeship. Again, young couples wishing to start in business on their own will find a better chance to begin in horticulture, with the opportunity properly to establish the base of the pyramid.
Will this scheme apply to local authorities? The Minister will recall that, during the passage of the Agriculture and Horticulture Act, we envisaged grants for the great distributive centres—for what is described by that ugly word "throughput". Suppose that a local


authority with greenhouses in the parks decides to go into this business. Will it qualify for this money?
It may be that HANSARD did not pick this up, but I believe that when my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) was asking a question about washing facilities and lavatory accommodation the Minister nodded. I took it from that that the scheme does apply to washing facilities and lavatory accommodation. There was an interesting article in the Daily Mail on Friday about conditions at Covent Garden. It is sad to say that there, one of the greatest markets in the world, there is complete lack of facilities and cleanliness that should certainly be present in the mid-20th century. I recently returned from Copenhagen and other places in Europe and I must say that it is absolutely essential that we increase our standards of distribution and cleanliness for our horticultural produce.
No one wants to be a scare-monger following the typhoid outbreak but that outbreak re-emphasises that it is essential to get 100 per cent. cleanliness among those handling horticultural produce. If these schemes help in that direction alone, they will do much for the health, strength and welfare of the people.
For many years I have been interested in the provision of shelter belts. These are extremely useful in areas like the Stilly Isles which need protection from the Atlantic western winds. When the Parliamentary Secretary speaks of shelter belts, does he include not only trees, but types of wattle fencing? Would there be grants through the Forestry Commission for the provision of trees for such a purpose, even though the timber could be farmed like timber in ordinary forests? If part of the cost of providing a shelter belt of trees can be met by a grant through the Forestry Commission, the sum involved in these schemes may not be £24 million.

8.46 p.m.

Sir Peter Agnew: I welcome these schemes. It would be contrary to the spirit of the debate and to what you would permit, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if, at great length, I went into the details of our argument in the Committee stage of the Agriculture and Horticulture Act, 1964. In giving his general welcome to the schemes the hon.

Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), who is the Opposition's chief spokesman on this subject, did so in the manner in which he conducted the opposition—if that is the right word, and I do not think that it is—to the Act in Committee. For a moment I thought that at the weekend he had been on a refresher course in ideology, but that was only a very temporary aberration on his part.
The N.A.A.S. is a nationalised service which has done valuable work. Its officers are extremely sympathetic and helpful in their advice to horticulturists about how to use the 1960 provisions. Their work is immensely widened by the 1964 provisions, but at this time it would not be right to deal with the strains placed upon these officers by the amount of work they do and by their lack of numbers. The Parliamentary Secretary has dealt with that issue on other occasions and we need not fear that this scheme will collapse because of those strains.
It is true that the increase of cost will be from £8 million to £24 million for horticultural businesses, and it would not be strictly within the scope of this debate to do more than mention the fact that there is also about £25 million available for the other end of the pipeline of horticulture, for the wholesale markets.
I wish to do nothing more than welcome these schemes which deal with a subject in which both sides of the House have played a part in deciding precisely what is to be planted in the legislation. When the money has begun to flow and the big and the small man have drawn what share of benefit they qualify for, do not let us think that all is then plain sailing for horticulture. It never will be. The very nature of the hazards which growers have to face means that, willy nilly, they are speculators, but, unlike some people who speculate on the Stock Exchange, they cannot do what other speculators do. They must face vagaries of the work.
I believe that as a result of these two schemes, which are the final act in the contributions which the Government had made towards a new drive and a new assurance for horticulture, the horticulture industry will be enabled to go forward with a greater chance, and one that has been recognised by the community, as expressed in this House.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. George Jeger: The House is giving a welcome to the schemes, and, 1 think, rightly so. They are a logical extension of the process of help to the agricultural and horticultural industries which started with the 1947 Act. That Act did not give a great deal of help to the horticultural side, and it has been a bit of a grievance to horticulturists that that has not been remedied as quickly as it might have been.
These schemes go a long way towards satisfying a number of things which those people have been demanding for many years. As the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir P. Agnew) said, the life and work of anyone engaged in smallholding in the horticultural production industry is not an easy one. However we advance benefits, subsistence, and assistance to him, he, and usually his family, works long hours, on many days of the week, to provide a living for himself and to provide the produce to send to market to satisfy the needs of our people. The help that we give through these schemes will be very welcome indeed.
I should like to consider the Schedule to the Horticulture Improvement Scheme to see whether some of the improvements which are set out there could not be extended. I know that we cannot amend these schemes now. They have to be accepted or rejected, but if the Minister would bear in mind some of the things which will happen to the people who are concerned, that might be a help in the future.
Just imagine a man working in his holding where he will have works for the disposal of sewage and effluent, and then going to his cottage, which adjoins his holding, and finding that there are no works there for the disposal of sewage and effluent. Imagine him having gas or electricity where he works, but not in his adjoining house which may well be lit with oil lamps. Imagine him having in the sheds and in the buildings where he works all sorts of modern equipment such as special packing tables, to which the Minister referred, specially designed so that they cannot be used for anything else, packing benches, packing plant and automatic food packers, and even bulb counting machines, and then going across the yard, or down the path, to

his primitive house, in which the local authority in a rural area has not given him a lavatory, gas, electricity, or a piped water supply. He will have all these pleasant and scientific advances in the place where he works, but not in his home.
One of the difficulties in agricultural areas is the lack of domestic facilities for modern civilised living. The extra money which is to be spent to provide better facilities for the running of the industry might have been expended on extending these facilities into the dwelling house which forms part of the holding. There is little difference between them. He will be clean where he works, but not in a position to get very clean in his home. Could not the provisions of paragraph 23 be extended, perhaps in a future Order, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government so that all these scientific appliances which the horticulturist has at work can be extended to give him decent facilities in his home? Paragraph 23 states:
Any operation incidental to the provision of any of the facilities specified in paragraph 21 or 22 of this Schedule, and necessary or proper in carrying out the work or for securing the full benefit of the said facilities".
Often the house adjoins the holding. Why should he not have civilised amenities in both?

8.56 p.m.

Sir Henry Studholme: I am grateful to the Government for these schemes. They are generous and imaginative. I remember my right hon. Friend saying on the Second Reading of the Agriculture and Horticulture Bill that he hoped that it would give horticulturists a new deal. I believe that that has happened. These schemes will be of great help to many of my constituents who are engaged in horticulture. I have been delighted to see the wide range of equipment covered by the grants, as well as the help given to obtain working capital for co-operatives and making it easier for growers to obtain credit to carry out improvements. All these things will be warmly welcomed and should go a long way towards helping growers to improve their businesses.
I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say, on the Second Reading of the 1964 Bill, that the benefits to horti-


culturists although they should help to reduce the industry's reliance on tariffs, were not intended as a sudden substitute for tariffs. He made it clear that there was no question of any reduction in tariffs being considered in the next four years and that in the future we would have to see how things were going.
Many people have, I fear, taken rather a gloomy view of the prospects of the horticulture industry, but I believe that the new Act and these schemes should give growers some hope and encouragement for the future.

8.58 p.m.

Mr. Denys Bollard: I have some sympathy with the argument the hon. Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) used about the contrast which there might be between ideal conditions on a holding and the conditions the worker in that holding might experience on going home. I suggest that the hon. Member was being hardly fair to the amount of progress which has been made in modernising rural housing.
Most horticultural holdings are styled on the Continental pattern. A good deal of modernisation of horticultural dwellings has taken place and in many instances the occupier is also the owner. Usually, he sees to it that his home is kept up to date and I am sure that there are not many instances as bad as those suggested by the hon. Member for Goole.
I strongly welcome these proposals. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) said that he would not encourage his hon. Friends to vote against them and I do not know whether, numerically, it would make much difference if they did.

Mr. Peart: rose—

Mr. Bullard: There is no need for the hon. Member to intervene. He might have been a little more generous to the Government for these proposals though I must say, in fairness, that he welcomed them in broad terms.
Like other hon. Members, I was surprised when reading the Schedules to see how comprehensively they cover the horticultural industry. I do not know who did all the thinking, but every possible contingency seems to have been covered. I have spoken in many horticultural and agricultural debates in the House and I have usually had sent to me

beforehand a written statement pointing out the defects of the Government's proposals. That has been sent to me by the National Farmers' Union, but it is significant to note that on this occasion I have not received any such literature from the union, which must indicate that it considers that the range of the proposals is sufficiently comprehensive.
I should like to ask the Minister whether forestry nurseries have been properly and adequately considered under the scheme As I understand, nurseries which are engaged in the raising of trees become eligible for grant for their equipment if they are raising ornamental trees or orchard trees, but if they are raising forest trees they are excluded, so I imagine that if they did nothing but raise forestry they would be excluded from the Act. This was a point raised previously by my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan), who has not been able to be here this evening. I should like the Minister to say a word about that.
On the question of fork-lift trucks, so widely used in packing processes, has my hon. Friend the Minister fully considered the point about registration and whether it would be possible for them to be grant-aided provided that an undertaking were given that they would not be moved off the holding or out of the co-operative or other packing plant in which they were used? I would have thought it possible for the Minister to overcome that kind of difficulty.
The main point that I want to make concerns the administration of the scheme. I was delighted to know that the full facilities of the National Agricultural Advisory Service, including the business management advisory side which is now gaining great strength in that service, would be fully used. This scheme will need a good deal of explaining and pushing with horticulturists. It may seem odd that it should be necessary to push anybody to derive benefit from a scheme of this kind, but many horticulturists are great individualists and I think that if they are to be fully helped a good deal of assistance will be required.
It was, however, not so much the actual pushing of the scheme that I wanted to stress as the possibility of delays arising in the approval of the scheme. Already,


under the existing Horticultural Improvement Scheme, I have put several cases to my hon. Friend, particularly referring to gas stores for fruit. In many cases delays amounting to several months arise before a proposition can be inspected for the initial approval. After inspection, there is a further delay before approval can be given—no doubt a lot has to be looked into before that can be done—and this has a very odd effect on the person putting up the scheme and who wants to go ahead.
From the psychological point of view, a definite danger arises if delay is too long. I was very pleased to hear that the Minister intends to add to the staff both of specialists and advisers and also intends to appoint non-qualified field officers who can carry these investigations. I hope that this will result in the cutting down of the delay, because growers have already told me that the service is hard put to it to get existing schemes through in time. The service will find it very much more difficult when it has the burden of a much wider scheme.
There is the question whether tenders will be required. In administering public money it is necessary to avoid any abuse, and often competitive tenders are necessary for equipment, buildings, and so on. The acquiring of tenders is a laborious process and as long as every care is taken with the administration, I hope that in many cases it will be found possible to do without competitive tenders, and so avoid grave and great delay.
I extend a hearty welcome to the proposals. This is a good way to help horticulture. It will not work wonders, but it is right to get the basic equipment of the industry in sound condition. It is easy for the grower to see what he is entitled to. I believe that many growers will take full advantage of the scheme and that we shall see a great improvement in the basic structure of the industry.

9.7 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: If a Scottish voice may intrude on this hitherto completely English discussion, I should like to join in the chorus of welcome which has been given to the schemes. The Minister has carried out pretty fairly

the obligations which he accepted in the Committee. It is inevitable that once we fix lower or upper limits there will always be hard cases. Regarding England, the Minister went into matters very carefully, which brings me to my first point. Did the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland go into the Scottish position with equal thoroughness? Has he figures relating to Scottish businesses which would satisfy us that the same consideration has been given to the Scottish problem as was extended by the Minister to the problems in England and Wales?
Am I right in assuming that the figures about the increase in the advisory service are for England and Wales and do not apply to Scotland? I should like the figures for Scotland, I should like to know what increase is expected in respect of the advisory services and field officers to be appointed specifically for this work. The hon. Gentleman should easily have anticipated that some simpleton like myself would be sure to ask about them.
I have not many specific points to raise about Scotland, but there is one and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will find the answer easy. It relates to the conditions of eligibility. In England the person concerned in the small business scheme has to be the owner of the freehold, or the tenant. In Scotland the equivalent owner of the freehold is the owner of the land. I should like to know what that means in Scottish terms, because "owner of the land" in relation to Scotland is rather complicated. Does it refer to the owner of the land as the feuer of the land? Or does it mean the land superior, who would be able to write pretty stringent conditions, if he so desired, into the feu under which the land is held? Was this drawn up with the full knowledge and help of Scottish draftsmen who would probably have shown more concern for accuracy of language?
I should like to say something about the scheme relating to small horticultural businesses. This is the scheme which meets, in words anyway, the position when a second programme is approved for the same ground. As I understand it, the Minister takes very considerable powers upon himself, powers of "yea"


and "nay". The scheme says that the payments in the second case:
may, if the appropriate Minister thinks fit, be reduced by an amount not exceeding the aggregate of all payments made to any person under any scheme
in connection with the carrying out of the previous programme. So, first, we assume that the appropriate Minister—the Minister of Agriculture or the Secretary of State for Scotland—has already approved the second programme, and, having done so, he has power to say whether anything shall be deducted from it, or, indeed, whether the total cost of the first programme shall be deducted. How are we to be able to judge the virtues of the Minister's exercise of discretion, because I can see nothing laid down? But the Minister is entirely covered. The words "if the appropriate Minister thinks fit" give him legal power to do whatever he likes. But we should still like to know how the Minister or the Secretary of State will adjudicate in these matters.
The scheme will be welcomed in Scotland as in England. There is scope for expansion. Given the guarantee that there will be a livelihood in this for the individual—there is no reason why there should not be, with proper grants and backing, including backing by the advisory service—there seems to be an opportunity for expansion in horticulture in certain parts of Scotland. We are closing a considerable gap in the provisions that we have been making over the years. I am sorry that it has taken the Government so long to do this. It is amazing what can be done just before a General Election. No doubt these things will come in handy in certain marginal constituencies. The Tories still have one or two constituencies in Scotland which they still regard as marginal, although the hope is fading.
The sum of £24 million is not bad. Probably some of my impoverished milk farmers in Ayrshire will think of going in for horticulture, but I shall have to warn them about that, because the grants are applicable in the first place only where there has been a two-year history of horticulture. I wonder to what extent this may limit expansion and the numbers entering the industry. But it would be wrong to start arguing that, because

it is related more to the Bill than to the scheme.
I compliment that Minister on the comprehensive nature of the Schedule relating to the Horticulture Improvement Scheme. I see the horticulturists in Scotland wondering where they will pick in Parts I, II and III of the Schedule. They may well find difficulty in relation to the limitation which the hon. Member has stipulated. He is not specific when he talks about conveyors and elevators. What about mobile orchard lifts? Cannot these be used elsewhere? The ingenuity of many people in the British countryside would ensure, I think, that they found a use for many of these items other than in horticulture.
I was tempted to ask him, under Part II of the Schedule, how much he expected to spend on each of the items. He was taking the Treasury in his hand in the
making and improvement of roads, paths and other permanent ways, railway crossings, bridges …".
How many bridges shall we get for the amount of money which is being spent here? It was said that this is an imaginative Schedule, and I entirely agree. The Minister has drawn a good deal on imagination in respect of some of the items listed.
But the schemes will be welcomed and may well lead not merely to stabilising the position in British horticulture but to a considerable expansion to the benefit of those employed in it. I hope that the Government's mind is not closed to other needs in the industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) compared the provision of amenities on a smallholding with those in a man's cottage. This gives food for thought. I echo the wish of the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) for a speeding-up of approvals and administration. In particular, I want from the Joint Under-Secretary of State an assurance that the advisory service will grow to match the improvement which can arise from these provisions.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: With the permission of the House, may I answer one or two points made in this short debate? The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) talked about the fall in the


number of acres and flexibility. He was referring to the change between the multiplication factor from four to six and so on. This does provide flexibility.
He mentioned bees. Under the second of these schemes, dealing with small business grants, the flexibility is provided in that we do not insist that the producer should go down a stated list of the things which he intends to do and for which he proposes to use the grant. He is able to follow whatever programme is agreed with the advisory service. It is more than probable that improved pollination could be part of the programme if it were in an area such as Kent where it is necessary. In that respect bee-keepers would indirectly be aided through the scheme.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) asked about Scotland, and the analysis which we have carried out in England. It was not carried out in Scotland but an analysis was made in Scotland of the position there, and horticultural production for the most part was limited to 950 intensively cropped horticultural units out of a total of 28,200 full-time agricultural holdings of over one acre.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock asked about the advisory service. He is aware that in Scotland there is not an advisory service of technical officers as we have it in England and Wales. I am assured that provision is being made to ensure that the technical officers will not be overloaded but will be able to cope with the increased number of applications which will flow in through the working of these two Schemes.

Mr. Ross: Surely the advisory service is worked in co-operation with the West of Scotland Agricultural College.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Surely. I turn to the points connected with the advisory service made by several of my hon. Friends, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Sir Douglas Marshall). He made the point, which is relevant, that the small horticultural grower sometimes is not entirely aware of the benefits which he can obtain through the various schemes and the conditions applying to them.
I can assure my hon. Friend that we take every opportunity we can to publicise these matters, through the medium

of the Press, wireless and television. We are in constant contact with the leaders of the industry, the C.A.E.C.s and the N.F.U. I hope that by these means we shall be able to disseminate information right down the line, because I am just as anxious as my hon. Friend is that all horticulturists should be aware of the benefits which they can obtain through these two schemes.
Several hon. Members mentioned £24 million as the amount of money to be spent under the Horticultural Improvement Scheme. This is the amount of money which will be available, but I have no idea exactly what will be spent. We shall not know until the applications come in for the various items now eligible for grant.
The hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) spoke about instalments, and asked why we are insisting that in some instances the grant be paid in instalments. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no question of sanctions. It is a safeguard which I am sure the House will agree is necessary when buildings, such as packing stations, are erected on land which is not agricultural and which therefore could obviously be lost to horticulture. In such circumstances we pay half the grant on completion and the remainder over five years, provided that the building remains used for horticulture. The other grant, under the Small Horticultural Production Business Scheme, is paid over three years. Another point made by the hon. Member for Leek was about local authorities. If a local authority has a business in horticulture, it will be treated as any other horticultural business. Local authority parks would not qualify for such grants.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about shelter belts, which are included in the Schedule. This also brings in the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard), who talked about grants for forestry. I was asked why they should not be transferred for grant purposes to forestry. It will be appreciated that forestry is completely separate from horticulture. Therefore, forestry as such does not come within the definition of a horticultural business. It is true that nurserymen who grow ornamental trees,


ornamental shrubs, etc., would not be excluded from the benefits of the scheme.
The hon. Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) pleaded that we should extend the Schedule. As one of my hon. Friends pointed out, the hon. Gentleman is being a little ungenerous. The Schedule covers extensive ground. The hon. Gentleman exaggerates the miseries which he seems to think exist in the countryside. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that rural electrification has been carried out to such an extent that 85 per cent. or 86 per cent. of farms and holdings now have electricity. The hon. Gentleman knows also that there are several other grants available for the modernisation of houses. These are being applied. Applications have come forward over the years. I am sure that the House will agree that we have more modern and better equipped houses now than we have had in the past.
My hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn talked about registration for such things as fork-lift trucks. Much as we should like to bring in these types of equipment, they could be used outside the horticultural holding. Registration might be a method of dealing with the matter, but in whatever way we sought to do it we must remember that we are dealing with equipment which is extremely easy to use outside horticulture, and the method of policing the system would be difficult, costly and cumbersome. I should not like to guess whether it would be a practicable proposition.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock said that various equipment listed in the Schedules might easily be adapted. Everything can be adapted, if sufficient time and money is spent on it, but I am sure that it would not be worth while for horticulturists to go to the expense, time and trouble of adapting a costly piece of equipment. We must not treat horticulturists as if they would readily do that kind of thing. The type of equipment included is specialised equipment which is used specifically on horticultural holdings.
My hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn also asked about tenders for equip-

ment. He will realise the necessity for safeguarding public money. In many cases we are dealing with equipment for which there are quotations, and it is right that tenders should be required when large sums of money are involved. I take his point about time and delay, but he will have noticed that in my opening speech I said that we were recruiting 30 or 40 field assistants, at least, and these should be of great help in assisting our technical advisory officers. They will be able to do a great deal of purely checking work, to see how the schemes are progressing.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock asked about the ownership of land. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for Scotland will be writing to him on the matter. He also asked about paragraph 6 of the Small Horticultural Production Business Scheme. The whole purpose of that paragraph is to provide that the same land should not receive more than one grant. There will be times when an owner will want to increase his holding when a scheme has already been completed on the land which he takes in, or the holding has been changed in some other way. That is why the paragraph provides for the Minister to determine the type and size of the grant to be made. The power is also there for the Minister to withdraw the grant.
I have gone over most of the points that have been raised. The schemes have been welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I am sure that they will be of great help to the horticulture industry, and that full advantage of them will be taken by all horticulturists.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Horticulture Improvement Scheme, 1964, a draft of which was laid before this House on 13th May, be approved.

Small Horticultural Production Business Scheme 1964 [draft laid before the House 13th May], approved.—[Mr. Scott-Hopkins.]

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURE (FERTILISERS)

9.30 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. A. Stodart): I beg to move.
That the Fertilisers (United Kingdom) Scheme 1964, a draft of which was laid before this House on 7th May, be approved.
The purpose of the scheme is to continue the fertiliser subsidy for the year 1964–65, and to give effect to the decision taken in this year's Annual Review to reduce the total annual fertiliser subsidy bill by £2 million. The new rates of subsidy are set out in the Schedule to the scheme. The reductions are all of the order of about 6 per cent., with the exception of the lower grades of basic slag, where they are a bit more.
There are some points of detail in the draft scheme on which I should comment. In paragraph 3 we are excluding from subsidy fertilisers to which either aldrin or dieldrin has been added. My right hon. Friend has already announced the Government's decision to give effect to the recommendations contained in the Report of the Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances Used in Agriculture and Food Storage on the persistent organo chlorine pesticides. My right hon. Friend also said that he had had assurances of co-operation from all the interests concerned in curtailing the use of these chemicals on the lines recommended by the Committee; and that this will be done through the voluntary scheme operated jointly by the manufacturers of agricultural chemicals and the Government. One of these recommendations was that the use of aldrin or dieldrin in fertiliser mixtures should stop as soon as this could be arranged, and the change in the wording of the draft scheme is designed to support the voluntary action to which manufacturers have already agreed.
In paragraph 3, words have been introduced to make it absolutely clear that occupiers or associations of occupiers of agricultural land may only obtain subsidy on fertilisers that they purchase and apply to their own land or crops. This is to make for clarification, and the words inserted do not imply any departure from the manner in which the present scheme is administered.
Paragraph 5 makes two changes to administration. Sub-paragraph (1) is concerned with the submission of application forms. In practice, forms will be sent to divisional offices of the Ministry in England and Wales, and to area offices of the Department in Scotland. This will simplify administration as well as improving it. Sub-paragraph (2,b) requires applications to be submitted within three months of the delivery of the fertilisers instead of within six months as in previous schemes. There is no reason why this should inconvenience farmers, and it will certainly help in the checking of subsidy schemes. We are, of course, taking steps to make quite sure that both these changes arising from the paragraph will be well publicised among the farming community.
Paragraph 6(1), which means, in effect, that subsidy will be calculated in tons, cwts. and quarters only, is a new provision, which is linked with the operation of a mechanised payment system. Claims containing fractions of a quarter of a cwt. have to be deflected from the machine and calculated and paid manually. The administrative cost of this operation is out of all proportion to the amount of subsidy involved.
The only other change to which I ought to draw attention is in the Schedule to the scheme. Previously, we have calculated subsidy on transactions to two places of decimals. This scheme limits the calculation to one place. We are making this change because, by doing it, we can feed additional information into our mechanised payments system and make use of it for the further checking of claims. Again, the effect on individual transactions is quite trivial.
I now leave these details and turn to more general matters. The use of fertilisers in the United Kingdom has been rising substantially for many years. Before the war, the annual total was about 250,000 tons of what is best described as plant nutrients. I use that term deliberately rather than refer to gross tonnage, because to use the gross tonnage would be misleading in view of the increased concentration to which fertilisers are now made. The 1 million tons mark was reached in 1957–58. In the subsidy year 1963–64, which has just ended, consumption looks like hitting a


total of about 1½ million tons, with Scotland, on her own, now using not far short of the pre-war consumption of the whole of the United Kingdom.
Consumption of the three main constituents, nitrogen, phosphate and potash, has increased substantially. Potash, although it attracts no subsidy, is used five to six times as much as prewar, phosphate nearly three times as much, and nitrogen consumption has grown eight or ninefold. These increases undoubtedly reflect not only the direct impact of the subsidy in cheapening the use of fertilisers to farmers but also the results of the advice given to farmers by the N.A.A.S. south of the Border, by the Scottish agricultural colleges and by other advisory voices.
The use of fertilisers at these levels is a most important factor in the productivity of agriculture in this country, and it is something which has attracted favourable comment from certain quarters overseas.

Mr. John Hall: My hon. Friend has referred to advice he has received about the use of fertilisers. Has not he received advice about the need to allow potash to have some part of the subsidy now given to fertilisers in general? This is of particular interest to my constituency, where the use of potash would be very valuable on the type of land we have there.

Mr. Stodart: It would be idle to say that advice of that kind has not been received. However, I hope that my hon. Friend noted that I did point out that the fact that potash is not subsidised has not caused any lack of attraction to it to be shown by farmers. The proof of this, surely, lies in the fact which I gave, that five or six times the amount of potash used before the war is now used. However, I recognise that this is a bone of contention.
Nothing has been more responsible than the increased use of fertilisers for the higher yields per acre which flow from the fields of grain all over our land. I am sure that some farmers reckon that they have reached the optimum use of fertilisers on their farms, on the balance of return to outlay, but I am equally sure that there is an enor-

mous number, both in arable and grass districts, particularly in the latter, who have still quite a long way to go.
In discussing the scheme, we cannot ignore the remarkable technical achievements which have been made by our fertiliser industry in producing materials and compounding fertilisers and increasing their concentration, as well as in packing and in distributing the fertilisers. All this has played a great part in reducing transport and handling costs to and on the farm.
This subsidy is a substantial one among our production grants. During the last financial year, just over £33½ million was paid out on it in the United Kingdom. Of this amount, Scotland received £4¼ million and the rest of the United Kingdom £29¼ million. It is a large sum, but we think that it effectively promotes the efficiency and productivity of the agricultural industry and is fully justified on these accounts.
The effects of using fertilisers form a continuous and important subject of study, not only at our own experimental farms, but at the independent research stations such as Rothamsted, the universities and the farm institutes and by manufacturers at research establishments. Every effort is made to ensure that this fund of knowledge is translated effectively into practical farming advice so that farmers can take the best advantage of the fertilisers at their disposal and that the subsidy, therefore, serves its best purpose. It is most important that this should be so.
A ton of compound concentrated fertiliser costs from just under £30 to a little over £40 gross and there is a wide range and variety of fertilisers. The more concentrated they become, the more essential it is for everyone concerned to ensure that a field which is low, for example, in phosphate is not fobbed off with a compound fertiliser which is high in nitrogen. The Motion invites the House to approve the draft scheme and I hope that it will do so.

9.42 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Peart: The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has waxed eloquent about fertilisers and their importance to the industry. I congratulate him upon his eloquence. We certainly do not disagree


with the scheme. Indeed, over the many years that the subsidy has applied, we have in principle supported this important production grant.
It will be seen from the White Paper that from 1955–56 the amount of money spent on the fertiliser subsidy has risen to the figure quoted by the Under-Secretary of £33·9 million in 1962–63. In 1955–56, we spent £14·8 million on the subsidy. In the following year, the figure rose to £19·8 million and in 1957–58 to £22·8 million. In the succeeding years, it amounted to £25·8 million, £29·4 million, £32·2 million and then £33 million in 1961–62 and £33·9 million in 1962–63. The latest forecast is a reduced figure of £32·3 million, although right hon. and hon. Members opposite who are responsible for their Departments will recognise that the estimate for 1964–65 shows an increase to £35 million.
As the Under-Secretary has rightly said, the rate of the production grant has been reduced and the total annual subsidy bill has been reduced by £2 million. This fact was mentioned by the Minister of Agriculture when presenting the White Paper. I accept that the changes are necessary. They are important. The period allowed for the submission of applications has been reduced from six to three months from the date of delivery of the fertilisers. This will improve the administration.
A second major point mentioned by the Minister is that the rates of contribution set out in the Schedule to the scheme have been reduced. That also is very important. A third important point, which I am glad was mentioned by the Under-Secretary, confirms that fertilisers to which aldrin and dieldrin have been added before purchase will not be eligible for the subsidy.
We on this side of the House welcome the scheme. I am all for the use of fertilisers and for aid to be given to farmers, but in the scheme itself there is a tightening up of administration. There is reference in paragraph 4(1) and (2) to "Purchase from Registered Suppliers". We are anxious that there shall be no abuses. I hope that we shall not have a repetition of a fertiliser company subsidising a local Tory Party. That was a misuse of funds which may have been

provided by the Exchequer. In the end a fertiliser company will benefit by subsidy which encourages producers to use more fertilisers and, unfortunately, this could bring benefit indirectly to a local Conservative Party. That was deplorable and the firm in question has learned its lesson.
I pay tribute to the use of fertilisers in this country and I pay tribute to our major fertiliser firms. I pay tribute to them for what they have been doing in the Soviet Union. I know that this is not in the scheme. The fertiliser subsidy encourages our fertiliser firms to do research and to increase the use of fertilisers on the farms. Out of their experience they can bring great aid to the farming community and also assist in exports. I was recently at the Moscow Exhibition and saw the good work which is being done by I.C.I. and Fisons. I pay tribute to both organisations. I trust that they have learned their lesson and will be more impartial and careful in the use of funds.
We are anxious to see this subsidy which has been going on for a long time used properly. We are anxious that the administration shall be improved. That is why I welcome paragraph 4 of the scheme. We laud what is being done by the Ministry to see that the scheme is administered properly and effectively and that there is no misuse of public money. It is the right and proper duty of this House this evening to probe the scheme. I approve of this scheme and of the use of production grants in this way. It is our proper duty when a scheme such as this is presented by the Minister to have a short debate and to see that public funds given to the industry through the medium of production grants are properly used and administered.
For these reasons, I accept the explanation given by the Under-Secretary who submitted it so eloquently and vigorously because of his keenness on fertilisers for Scotland. I hope that the scheme will be well administered.

9.49 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard: I do not wish to detain the House, but I ask one question of the Minister. When I saw my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary some time ago about specialist equipment and various things concerning my part of


the Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly he made a rule, which was discussed on the last scheme, that grants should not be given where, to put it colloquially, things were "floggable". The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, in introducing this scheme, said that the grants would be made available provided that farmers used the fertilisers on their own land.
I ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who is to reply, to consider again some of the special problems 1 raised with him about equipment in my part of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

9.50 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: The Under-Secretary of State has shown a masterful grasp of the subject of fertilisers. I never thought that I would hear fertilisers discussed to two points of decimals. However, there are certain matters which I must ask about. I have no doubt that the subsidy has been of great assistance in encouraging the use of fertilisers, but I am entitled to ask whether the taxpayer has been getting value for money.
I must mention again that the British fertiliser industry is largely monopolistic. It is run by a few large firms and this monopolistic position is underpinned by the levying of a high tariff on the imported competitive product. Very often there is also a heavy anti-dumping duty.
Therefore, not only is there a monopolistic position but it is one that has been underpinned by the Government. It was therefore, not surprising that Fisons should have felt its gratitude to the Government. We read of its contribution of £1,200 to the Sudbury and Woodbridge funds. When the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) says that we hope Fisons has learned its lesson, no one can claim that it is ungrateful because I read tonight that Lord Netherthorpe says that this will continue, although, if I read his remarks correctly, perhaps not specifically in one constituency. Fertilisers will be more widely spread.

Mr. Denys Bullard: Is the hon. Gentleman quite sure about the monopolistic position in manufacturing as opposed to the manufacture of basic commodities like nitrogen? Quite a large range of firms are involved in the manufacture of fertilisers. I have one in my

constituency, a large amount of whose capital is owned by the Co-operative Wholesale Society. My experience of purchasing fertilisers is that the prices as between one firm and another are competitive. I think that the hon. Gentleman should be careful in his generalisations.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The intervention by the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) attracts my attention to the fact that that topic is out of order on this question.

Mr. Thorpe: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, but we are discussing a scheme which arises directly as a result of the reduction of £2 million in the assistance which will be given to the farmers under the Annual Price Review. It follows that this is a scheme providing machinery for giving assistance, totalling several millions of pounds, through a subsidy to the farming community.
In my submission, I am entitled to ask whether that money is being wisely or necessarily spent on behalf of the farming community. My contention is that if there were greater competition within this industry, if there were greater opportunity for farmers to buy their fertilisers in the freest possible market, there would be a very great reduction in the money which has to be found here. I do not say that there would be complete lack of need for this scheme. If I keep to that point I submit, subject to your Ruling, that it would be relevant to the scheme.
In answer to the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard), who suggested that I was perhaps being unfair in my generalisations, I refer him to the views expressed by the Monopolies Commission in February, 1960. None of the provisions suggested then by the Commission has yet been implemented by the Government. It said that, without doubt, Fisons had a monopolistic position in regard to superphosphates and that it was a position that the company abused. The Commission went on to say that it was confident that home-produced fertiliser prices would be reduced by voluntary arrangements.
In fact, in 1960 we had the fantastic position that although superphosphates imported from Holland carried a 17½ per cent. tariff, which thereby inflated their price by that amount, they were still being sold on the British market at £3 12s. 6d. a ton cheaper than Fisons'


product without any tariff. Although, in 1962, triple superphosphates prices were reduced by Fisons, it was still possible to buy the imported product in this country cheaper, even though it attracted the 17½ per cent. duty. If action were taken about the Monopolies Commission's recommendation for the licensing of other firms, prices of superphosphates would come tumbling down. What would be even more efficient would be a cut in the 17½ per cent. tariff.
The same is true of nitrogen, which is also within the purview of this scheme. There is a duty of £3 4s. a ton on imported nitrogen, and even today the cost of Italian nitrogen on world markets is £5 a ton cheaper than the wholesale price in this country. Even with the inflation of £3 4s. a ton operating on imported nitrogen, the Italian product is still £1 a ton cheaper than the price being charged by I.C.I.
So we have not only very powerful and large monopolies, but a tariff protection of either an ad valorem duty or a fixed amount per ton artificially inflating the price of the imported product and thereby artificially protecting the home-produced product. That was why the Restrictive Trade Practices Court criticised the price-fixing arrangements of I.C.I. in regard to nitrogen, but again the Government took no action. Farmers would be able to buy fertilisers much more cheaply and the taxpayer would be saved a large amount of the subsidy bill if the Government were to implement the recommendations of the Monopolies Commission about fertilisers.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is not following me. It may be that the Government can do other things which would have other results, but the obligation to fulfil the recommendation of the Monopolies Commission, if there be one, would not be affected by whether the House approved the scheme. This is the hon. Gentleman's difficulty. He is quite entitled to say, "Until the Government do so and so, I will not approve the scheme", but that is a different argument.

Mr. Thorpe: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I have concluded my remarks.

9.58 p.m.

Sir Anthony Hurd: I must be careful not to trespass as the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) has trespassed, but it comes within the terms of the scheme to consider for a moment what has been the effect of previous cuts in the rates of subsidy.
This evening we are being asked to approve a cut in the rate of subsidy for nitrogen and phosphates. There was a cut last year when the fertiliser industry made economies in its own working, in manufacture, production and distribution, so that the farmer did not suffer by reason of the cut. However, there comes a point at which an industry, however efficient—and we have a highly efficient fertiliser industry—cannot continue to make cuts ad lib.
That point has been reached this year. When they study the price lists being offered to them by the big and small companies farmers will see that they are being asked to pay a little more for their high-grade fertilisers for the coming season than they paid during the previous 12 months. The House should recognise that that will be the effect of the scheme that we are being asked to approve.
It may well be that that is only a temporary effect, and that in a year or two, when we get still bigger developments in the expansion of the fertiliser industry—and it is necessarily a big business job, involving many millions of pounds to get the kind of plant which gives the cheapest production—we shall see a fall in the cost of producing nitrogen for fertilisers. That will not doubt fructify to the benefit of farmers in the next two, three, four or five years, but it will not happen this year, because these new plants are only in the course of construction.
When we hear about Dutch and Italian fertilisers being offered at a lower rate than our own products, it is as well to remember that what is offered here is the overspill from the home markets of those countries, and that they charge considerably more to their own consumers than they are prepared to quote here for their surpluses.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we are giving the overspill of some of our fertiliser production to


Ireland and India at a lower price? Is it not a good thing to let the farmer buy it as cheaply as he can? Is there anything wicked in doing that?

Sir A. Hurd: We do not export fertilisers from this country.

Mr. Thorpe: Who is "we".

Sir A. Hurd: The fertiliser industry. There is no net export of fertilisers from this country.
We ought to recognise that, inevitably, this is an industry of big units, and that because of the techniques which are being developed, in the years ahead it will be an industry with still bigger units. That will bring benefits to the farmer by way of cheaper fertilisers both in this country and on the Continent. It is no good imagining that the greatest benefit will come from having a large number of small units all competing with one another. That is the surest way to get costly fertilisers. I think that we must bear with the fact that this looks like a monopolistic industry, but that is the way to get the cheapest fertilisers, which will ensure that the best value is gained from the kind of subsidy that we are being asked to approve tonight.

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman spoke about providing the farmers with cheap fertilisers. I think that the hon. Gentleman is the chairman of one fertiliser company. If a company producing fertilisers subsidises the Conservative Party, in the end that can effect its supplies to the small producer. I think that the hon. Gentleman ought to deal with the point which I raised. I challenge him on this matter. Does he confirm what Lord Netherthorpe said this evening? If he does, it is remarkable? How much does this company give?

Sir A. Hurd: That point was raised when Mr. Speaker was in the Chair, and I think that he ruled that we should not pursue it any further. I do not want to add to what Lord Netherthorpe is reported to have said in the Evening Standard tonight, which was a repetition of what he said at the last annual general meeting of Fisons.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): Order. We are getting a long way from the scheme.

Mr. Peart: As we have not had an answer, may I press the hon. Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge (Mr. Stainton), who, I believe, was a recipient of the grant?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. Tudor Watkins.

Mr. Tudor Watkins: rose—

Mr. James Hoy: On a point of order. This scheme is concerned with a grant of public money. This industry is being subsidised by the Government. Surely we are entitled to ask how this subsidy is spent. Surely we are entitled to ask whether a part of it goes to the funds of a political party.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The Minister has the right of reply at the conclusion of the debate.

10.5 p.m.

Mr. Tudor Watkins: Is it not time that the figures were divided as between England, Scotland and Wales? Could we not be given some separate figures for Wales? Am I to take it, since figures for Wales have not been given, that we in Wales are not using any fertilisers? It is disturbing to note that Ministers always lump England and Wales together, particularly when giving statistics, and yet they give separate statistics for Scotland. My constituents, in Mid-Wales, are doing excellent work, although from the lack of figures it would seem that the Government are not aware of this.
Wales is a nation and we are entitled to know what is happening there. If figures can be given for Scotland they should be available for Wales. I regret that separate figures are not available, particularly on matters affecting agriculture, and that whenever I ask for such figures I am given the standard reply, "I will write to the hon. Gentleman after the debate". It is time that Ministers had Welsh statistics available when asked questions about Wales.
I will ask only one question of the Minister tonight. This concerns paragraph 4(2, b) of the scheme, where it is stated:
… was purchased from a person carrying on in Great Britain the business of supplying fertilisers who was not registered as mentioned …".


How are my constituents to know who are the registered suppliers, particularly since the final words of that subsection refer to people not knowing whether or not the supplier was registered?

10.7 p.m.

Mr. James H. Hoy: I was grateful to hear the Minister say that the administration of these subsidies is being tightened up. On a previous occasion I had to raise this matter because the House will be aware that this particular subsidy caused some trouble to the Committee of Public Accounts. Indeed, I believe that it was proved beyond doubt that there had been a considerable abuse of public money in this respect.
When we said that, we were not maligning the whole of the manufacturers or the recipients of this subsidy. There is no doubt, however, that there were some people within the scheme who were receiving sums of money and were abusing the scheme, even when fertilisers were not being given for the cash supplied. I was delighted to hear tonight that the Government have tightened this up because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) said, we are concerned with public money. The care with which the Scottish Office exercises its responsibilities over housing subsidies is in marked contrast to this, because if the Minister's statement is correct, this subsidy to Scottish farmers alone amounts to about £5 million a year. We are told that we in Scotland are using about one-sixth of the total for Great Britain. The Minister said that our consumption was about a quarter of a million tons while the total for the whole country was about 1½ million tons. This means that Scotland's share of the purse is more than £5 million.
It is extremely important that we should receive an assurance that the money is being well spent. It was to this end that the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) wanted an assurance about how this firm was spending its money, because, after all, this firm is using some of the profits it has earned—and earned from this subsidy—to make a donation to the Conservative Party. This is admitted by the chairman of Fisons. "My firm donated

money to the Conservative Party" he has said, and the House is entitled to an assurance that no part of the money provided by the Government in the form of subsidies is going into the pockets of the Conservative Party.
An assurance along these lines represents the sort of request we should make in defence of the public purse, and I should have thought that hon. Members opposite would deem it correct that we should make such a request. Indeed, I should expect hon. Members opposite to wish to defend the public purse against an abuse of this kind. I express my thanks to the Minister for saying that these things have been tightened up. This has been done in response to what was said by the Committee of Public Accounts. We are grateful, but in view of the fact that someone seeks to boast about what they are doing with their share of the profit, which in no small measure was provided because of schemes of this kind and money provided by the public, perhaps the Minister would make sure that there are no further abuses.

10.10 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): I should like to reply to various points which have been made during this all too brief debate. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) referred to difficulties which arise in respect of the Isles of Scilly. I am aware of these and a meeting has been held. I suggest that it might be profitable if we made a further examination of this matter together.
The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) asked for the figures relating to Wales and I have pleasure in providing them for him. The latest figures are for 1962–63 and the subsidy paid was £1·4 million. I could take the hon. Member back to 1957–58 if he wishes. Working backwards, the annual figures are £1·7 million, £1·6 million, £1·6 million, £1·3 million and £1·3 million. I will give him the tonnage for each of the various types of fertiliser if he wishes, but perhaps he will accept that information from me by the normal method by which it has been conveyed in the past.
The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor asked about the registration of


fertiliser suppliers and this point was also referred to by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy). Any supplier who wishes may register. A list of registered suppliers is held at the divisional offices of the Ministry and at the area offices in Scotland. After a supplier has been registered, he must comply with the undertakings he has given. Only if he does not do so will his name be removed from the register and then he would be ineligible to supply subsidised fertilisers to farmers.
The hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) made an attack on Fisons and, I think, also on I.C.I. He will be aware—in fact, he mentioned it himself—that this question of monopoly was gone into thoroughly. He will recall that during the inquiry the Monopolies Commission did not criticise the level of the profits of I.C.I. Fisons' level of profit was investigated and the firm accepted the Commission's findings immediately and announced that prices had in fact, already been reduced. They gave a further assurance about profits to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry, and Trade and this was announced in the House. The hon. Gentleman implied that the subsidy is paid to the suppliers, but that is false. The subsidy is paid to the farmer, and is for his benefit, whatever the hon. Gentleman may think about it.

Mr. Peart: The subsidy may go to the farmer, but if it is increased it will increase the business of the fertiliser companies.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The subsidy has been cut year by year over past years. This is not a subsidy paid to the suppliers. It is paid to farmers to encourage them to use fertilisers properly.
The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) made the extraordinary statement that he wanted to see everyone using more and more fertiliser. The hon. Member will realise that there are optimum levels, and it has been pointed out that it is very necessary to take expert advice as to what fertiliser one should use and the amounts that should be used. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman meant that rather than encouraging willy-nilly the use of fertilisers.
The hon. Member for Devon, North talked about the prices of imported

fertiliser. As recently as 28th May the Financial Times commented that fertiliser prices in the United Kingdom are now below those in most European countries, and other sources of information corroborate this. There is little point in believing that there are any cheap continental fertilisers in substantial supply or at a comparable price level to those in this country which the tariff is denying to our farmers.
The 1963 O.E.C.D. Report showed that the United Kingdom did not then compare very favourably with some Continental countries over the price of ammonium nitrate. But most of the nitrogen used by this country then—and I think that the position is the same now—was derived from sulphate of ammonia, and we are among the very cheapest producers of that product. So these comparisons need to be extremely carefully worked out and dealt with.
It is quite wrong for the hon. Gentleman to say that European producers are generally cheaper than we are. That is not so. It is also wrong to say that the tariff is keeping out cheap fertiliser of which our farmers would otherwise have the benefit.

Mr. Thorpe: I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman say that fertilisers in this country are highly competitive in price. That being so, may we take it that there is no longer need for a 17½ per cent. duty on superphosphate and no need for a £3 4s. per ton tariff on nitrogen? Now that we can so easily compete with other countries, may we take it that both of those will be abolished in due course?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The hon. Gentleman knows what the Government's policy is towards tariffs and what it is in the general international negotiations which take place within G.A.T.T., and it is rather stupid of him to try to make that point. I have been underlining the facts as they stand today, whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not, or whether he is out of date or not.

Mr. Thorpe: Surely the hon. Gentleman would agree that there is nothing to stop the Government unilaterally lowering tariffs. If tariffs are only to protect home industry and the home industry, as we have heard from him, does not need them, why not do so?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We are getting outside the scope of the scheme.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I think I have covered that point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, in my last reply to the hon. Gentleman. I do not think I need go over it again.
I have covered most of the points raised in the debate. I am sure that hon. Gentlemen will feel that this is a worthwhile scheme. It is an encouragement to our farmers to continue to use fertilisers to the best of their ability, and I commend it to the House.

Mr. J. M. L. Prior: Could my hon. Friend give me the amount of subsidies paid to farmers for fertilisers in 1950 and 1951?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Not without notice.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Fertilisers (United Kingdom) Scheme, 1964, a draft of which was laid before this House on 7th May, be approved.

Orders of the Day — NEW FOREST BILL [Lords]

Sir H. Legge-Bourke, Mr. J. Wells, Mr. Farr, and Mr. Kenyon nominated Members of the Select Committee on the New Forest Bill [Lords].—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]

Orders of the Day — ROAD TRAFFIC, IPSWICH- MARTLESHAM

10.20 p.m.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pym.]

Mr. Keith Stainton: As a motorist with a fairly wide itinerary, I am not unaware of the fact that most hon. Members have problem stretches of road within their constituencies, those in urban areas probably more than others. But although I represent substantially a rural area in Suffolk, I nevertheless feel well justified in drawing the attention of the House to the problem which is the subject of this debate. I am most grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for being able to do so.
The stretch of road about which I want to give voice, as it were, is on the A.12, which runs from London to Yarmouth, and I am concerned about the four-mile stretch of road between Ipswich and Martlesham. I hope that by constraining my remarks into a reasonable compass I may be able to make way for the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot) to endeavour to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, for roads start and finish somewhere, despite the frustrations of getting held up in traffic queues, and this road runs into our big city of Ipswich, which is on the outskirts of my constituency, if I may invert the situation like that.
As I see it, the A.12 between Ipswich and Martlesham is suffering from two root problems. The first is that it is grossly overloaded. If ever there were a case of a quart into a pint pot, this surely is it, with all the attendant hazards. Secondly, this piece of road reflects a basic defect in the relationship of past development to the road which will make the eradication of accidents extremely difficult. Perhaps for a moment or two I may enlarge on both these points.
First, I should like to refer to the maximum capacities for various types of carriageway specified by the Ministry of Transport. I am particularly glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith) is here to answer this brief debate.
The specification laid down by the Ministry of Transport in relation to two-lane carriageways is, I understand, 6,000 passenger car units per 16-hour day, and yet a recent survey by the county surveyor of the traffic on this stretch of road demonstrated that within a matter of a few months the traffic will build up at certain minimum points to 14,250 passenger car units per 16-hour day and at maximum points on the road to 18,000 passenger car units per day. These figures compare with the advised maximum of 6,000 passenger car units. In other words, they are more than twice in any event and in some cases up to three times the specified safety levels laid down by the Minister.
A word about the defects in past development. I think that I can perhaps best illustrate this by quoting from a report recently prepared by the county surveyor, who said:
This section of trunk road has a two-lane single carriageway which has no speed limit throughout its length. There is no proper system of street lighting. There are long lengths of ribbon development throughout nearly all this section. The length through the parish of Kesgrave has residential development in depth on the south side giving rise to considerable right-hand turning movements across the opposing traffic stream at the evening peak period. There are 24 side roads joining this length of trunk road, including one Class I, one Class II and six Class III roads, apart from service roads and numerous individual accesses to the residential properties fronting the road. It will be appreciated that this gives a basic situation which is contrary to the generally accepted principles of road safety, which call for the segregation of development from main traffic routes and the strict limitation of the number of points of access.
Those are the two root problems to which I want to draw attention. The situation is not a mere statistical abstraction. Over the past five years the numbers of accidents reported by the Chief Constable of Suffolk on this four-mile piece of road have been 90, 79, 108, 92 and 85 and roughly one-third, in some cases getting on for one-half, of those accidents in each year have involved injury. Each year there has been at least one fatality, in two years two fatalities, and in one year three fatalities.
Hence I suggest that it is little wonder that two petitions, involving signatures in excess of 15,000 persons, have recently been collected quite spontaneously, one by a small newsboy going his rounds on the estates roundabout this road, and


submitted to the Minister. Further, we have recently had a public meeting which was very well attended by a keen, attentive audience which passed resolutions asking for the immediate imposition of some form of speed limit and blocking of the access roads.
May I round off my remarks about the bad development and the under-capacity of the road in relation to its usage by referring to the ultimate solution? This is a bypass from somewhere on the Ipswich boundary through to the A.12, perhaps four or five miles to the north-east. I understand that the Ministry was about to indicate the line of this road when the Government, two to three years ago, commissioned the South-East Study and the Vincent Report. Now that those Reports are with us and have cast considerable doubts on exactly which way the area will develop, though develop it will, the bypass has once more gone into the melting pot. We should be well advised to put it on one side this evening and concentrate on the future of the existing road. In proportion as the bypass is deferred so it is useful and important to consider the future of the existing road.
In May, 1961, the Ipswich Borough Council undertook an origin and destination study of traffic on this piece of road. This study demonstrated that, even with a bypass, about two-thirds of traffic would disappear but one would be left with one-third on this stretch of road, which would still be in excess of 6,000 passenger car units per 16-hour day. If one has regard to the 5 per cent. per annum compound increase in traffic, which is what the Minister recognises in design stipulations and is certainly modest by Buchanan standards, a dual carriageway rather than the single two-lane carriageway we now have would be necessary by 1975, even if the bypass were constructed and deflected some two-thirds of the existing traffic.
As the Ipswich borough survey pointed out, it is by no means certain that two-thirds of the traffic would be so deflected, even with a bypass in the immediate future. It all depends in fact on where the junction between the bypass and the Ipswich traffic would be. In fact, if the traffic were to enter the Ipswich area at Tuddenham, the fall

would not be two-thirds but one-half. In other words, one would be left with about 9,000 passenger car units on this piece of the A.12 and this, allowing for growth in traffic, would certainly mean that dual carriageways would be necessary, bypass or no, by 1968. I submit that as far as can be foreseen dual carriageways are necessary and would be justified on the existing roads, even if the bypass is not constructed.
The long-term answer is doubtless the bypass, but this is for the future. We must address ourselves to the short and medium term. Here I specially underline the need for a dual carriageway within the next two or three years at the outside commencing and concentrating on the run from Ipswich to Dobbs Lane, which is about a quarter of the stretch with which I am concerned. There are immediate points which require attention. One of these is lighting. Forty-five per cent. more accidents occur in the hours of darkness, and in the period of darkness 50 per cent. of the injuries and 70 per cent. of the fatal accidents occur.
I would like to hear from the Minister that the Ministry is prepared to make the 50 per cent. grant which is customary in these circumstances, in order to get first-class lighting along this stretch of road. I believe that it is customary, but the local authorities are looking for some guidance and initiative in this regard.
Secondly, there is the question of right-hand turns. In 1962 and 1963 the major causes of accidents were right-hand turns across the passing traffic stream, and overtaking. There is a strong case for reducing the number of side roads into which right-hand turns can be made, and also for improving junctions. The junction with Dobbs Lane has been radically improved recently, and at Beech Road and Edmonton Lane improvements are in hand. The Bell Lane junction would require an order from the Minister under the Highways Act, 1959. There is room for a more radical approach, such as the closing of access roads and providing better lay-bys and turning points for the reduced number of access points.
I have mentioned overtaking. Then there is the question of speed. The occurrence of accidents at off-peak


periods, when higher speeds are possible, is a strong indication that speed is a factor affecting the number of accidents. I urge the Minister seriously to reconsider the attitude he has adopted up till now, which has led him to impose no speed limit on this stretch of road. I suggest that a 40 m.p.h. speed limit should be considered. Such a proposal would have the complete endorsement of the acting chief constable of the county, who has pointed out that
The road between the points mentioned is narrow and there is only room for one line of traffic in either direction. There are at least three points on this road where a motorist appears to have a clear field of vision when in fact the layout can hide approaching vehicles, so that drivers believing they have a clear road ahead start to overtake at high speeds and meet oncoming traffic head-on.
2. There are a large number of houses each having a garage, the entrance to which is used at least twice a day, with the resultant danger of traffic turning on to the A12 in front of other high speed vehicles.
3. The number of roads on the south side of the A 12 necessitating a large number of right-hand turns and the consequent danger when vehicles travelling at high speeds are unable to pull up in time to avoid a stationary car in the centre of the road waiting to turn right.
4. The heavy volume of traffic passing over this road….
5. The heavy accident record.
6. The steady increase in the population using the road.
The acting chief constable says, of the objection that a speed limit would not be respected and would fall into disrepute, that
It would be a matter for police to enforce the limit, particularly at critical times of the day.
He appears to be quite satisfied. There may be a case for having signs along the road warning motorists that they are approaching a dangerous accident area, and perhaps the prohibition of overtaking.
I want to say a word about pedestrians. There is a pedestrian subway, which is part of the Kesgrave Modern School, and for some time there has been agitation to allow ordinary pedestrians to use it. Apparently the thing is now bogged down with the county education committee, and it will be some time before that committee holds its next meeting to consider its decision in this matter. I suggest that

anything that the Minister might be able to do to expedite that on the right lines would be very warmly received in this district.
In summary, this is a shockingly bad piece of road. An ultimate bypass is all well and good, but we cannot hope on hope for ever while being struck down by passing vehicles. What the people in this area want immediately is lighting, a speed limit with adequate signs, and access roads, and, in the not-too-long term, a road with all the characteristics of a dual carriageway.

10.35 p.m.

Mr. Dingle Foot: . This is one of the rare occasions when I have the pleasure of finding myself in agreement with my Parliamentary neighbour the hon. Member for Sudbury and Wood-bridge (Mr. Stainton). He is quite right when he says that for a long time there has been great public concern both in Ipswich and in the less advanced areas outside about the hazards of the road between Ipswich and Martlesham. We are concerned about the fact that the accident rate is extremely high—higher, I think, than anywhere else in East Anglia. There have been representations during the last year or two from the East Suffolk County Council, from the local authorities concerned and from the police, all of which have fallen on deaf ears at the Ministry.
This is not a party issue, and I do not desire to make it one, but I should like, first, to refer for a moment to correspondence that has passed over the last two years between the Ministry and the Kesgrave Labour Party, which has taken several initiatives in the matter. As long ago as August, 1962, it pointed out to the Ministry the dangers to children; and the fact that the school population along the whole of this stretch of road is increasing. This year it organised a petition—one of the petitions to which reference has been made—asking again that a speed limit be imposed, and also asking that action should be taken to improve the inadequate lighting of the road.
On 1st May this year, the Ministry wrote to the secretary of the Kesgrave Labour Party in these terms—and I quote one paragraph:
The power to light streets is vested by statute in local authorities and the Minister has


no power to direct them in this matter. In the case of trunk roads, however, the Minister has power to contribute half the cost of an approved scheme. If the lighting authorities concerned are considering installing lighting on this length of road the Divisional Road Engineer is available to give any advice or assistance they may require.
I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary: if a scheme is put forward, will we have a generous reponse from the Ministry?
Secondly, I should like to refer to an Answer I received on 8th April about improvements on this road. The reply was:
The improvement of the Dobbs Lane junction should be finished this month. Negotiations for land required at the Edmonton Road junction are in progress and, all going well, the improvement should be finished this summer. The start of work at the Beech Road junction depends on progress made with land acquisition."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th April, 1964; Vol. 692, c. 205.]
Can the Minister now elaborate that reply? Can he tell us whether the improvement at the Edmonton Road junction will be finished this summer, and whether the start of the work at the Beech Road junction is to begin, at any rate, during the course of the current year?
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge in what he has said about the need for a dual carriageway, and in urging the Ministry to reconsider the question of a speed limit on this stretch of road.

10.39 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): This is, I think, the first Adjournment debate that my hon. Friend the Member for Sudbury and Wood-bridge (Mr. Stainton) has had; I am sorry to say that it is the 23rd I have had to reply to this Session. So, though I am delighted to be answering my hon. Friend, I hope that now he has broken the ice he will not make too much of a habit of it—at least with the Ministry of Transport. I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend on the clear and workmanlike way in which he made his case. Obviously, his constituents are fortunate in having a Member who takes his duties so seriously and who presents his case with so much knowledge and so persuasively.
I cannot say the same about the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot). The hon. and learned Gentleman said that he would not make a political speech, but he referred to his own party two or three times. He has not had the energy to raise this matter himself, and he has intervened in my hon. Friend's Adjournment debate, leaving me inadequate time to reply. He took very much more than the two minutes which he said he would take.

Mr. D. Foot: I raised this matter—

Mr. Galbraith: The gist of my hon. Friend's case is that road conditions between Ipswich and Martlesham are bad. He wants something done to improve them, and very understandably so. My hon. Friend has even made several specific suggestions, which I shall try to deal with in the time remaining to me, but, before I do so, I wish to say a word about the road itself.
The road has an average width of about 23 feet, which is sufficient for two lanes of traffic. Free flow conditions allow about 6,000 passenger car units a day. For most of the day, traffic on the road is within this capacity, in spite of the very high figures which my hon. Friend mentioned. One can prove almost anything with figures; it depends how one uses them. But on this road, as on so many other main roads at present, there are periods of congestion.
Apart from holiday traffic, however, this congestion is restricted to the morning and afternoon peaks when people who work in Ipswich, in the hon. and learned Gentleman's constituency, are travelling to and from the residential area of Woodbridge which my hon. Friend represents. In other words, what we are faced with here is mainly a commuter problem, which, I am sorry to say, is a problem not unknown on the approaches to many others of our main towns.
My hon. Friend suggested that there were two major forms of improvement which he wanted. One was a bypass and the other was dualling. As for the bypass, we had originally planned to construct a short length at Martlesham and to improve the existing carriageway between Martlesham and Ipswich. With the growth of traffic, however, it became


evident that this would not do, and revised plans for a comprehensive bypass of the whole section were then made. At this stage, the South-East Study, envisaging a large increase of population at Ipswich, threw everything into the melting-pot once again, and, as a result, a new survey will have to be carried out to determine the best trunk road pattern to fit in with any future plans for the expansion of Ipswich. My hon. Friend probably accepts that this is some way away now and that, for the time being, there cannot be a bypass.
This leads me to his suggestion about dualling. Here, I must part company with my hon. Friend because, on dualling, it seems to me that the position is very much as it is on the bypass. Priority here is also dependent upon the results of the survey which is being carried out. We estimate that the bypass which was originally planned would have attracted two-thirds of the traffic from the existing roads and that the residual traffic left would not have justified dual carriageways. I should, perhaps, point out that, if, in fact, there is a bypass, the existing road would then be detrunked, and the highway authority would be responsible for any further improvement, not the Minister.
So what it amounts to is that, after the survey has been completed and decisions taken on the future expansion of Ipswich, it will then become a question of what is the right course of action for improving the road pattern in this district. It may be to start a bypass; it may be to carry out dualling. At this stage, I simply do not know. I should, perhaps, add that dualling itself is not likely to offer much prospect of reducing the accident rate, to which my hon. Friend referred. Right-hand turns would still be necessary, and the higher speeds of oncoming traffic might, in fact, increase the risk.
If we accept that, for the time being, major improvements are out of the question, what can be done to better conditions? My hon. Friend has made several interesting suggestions. He is quite right that a major cause of congestion is the making of right-hand turns, and it is often possible substantially to reduce this hazard by improving the layout of junctions and providing waiting lanes or waiting spaces.
We have already authorised the improvement of the layout at three of the most important junctions between Ipswich and Martlesham, enabling waiting lanes and traffic bollards to be provided. Several other minor improvements, including the provision of four bus draw-ins, have also been undertaken.
My hon. Friend suggested that some side-road junctions should be closed in the interests of road safety. I am certainly willing to examine this possibility, but we must remember the convenience of those at present using the junctions and also the cost which would be involved in the provision of service roads. If, however, it proves possible to add service roads over a substantial distance, we will consider making that part of the trunk road a clearway, and this would obviously help. Other possibilities are the improvement of carriageway markings and the provision of additional traffic signs. There may well be something in these suggestions and I shall ask our divisional road engineer to consider them in consultation with the county engineer to see whether anything on these lines can be done.
My hon. Friend is full of bright ideas and he and the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich have suggested that something should be done to light up the road at night. As, I am sure, both hon. Members know, this is a matter primarily for the local lighting authorities, in whose hands Parliament has placed authority to light the streets. It is for those authorities to take the initiative in this instance, and not the Minister. On trunk-roads, my right hon. Friend has the power to contribute to the cost of installing, maintaining and operating lighting installations of adequate standard, but the approach must be made in the first instance by the lighting authorities. I understand that the county council has recently invited the authorities concerned to attend a meeting to discuss the matter. If the lighting authorities put up a satisfactory scheme, we will certainly be prepared to pay half the cost, which is our share. I hope that this will please both hon. Members.
My hon. Friend also referred to the pedestrian tunnel connecting the school at Kesgrave, on the north side of the road, with the south side. This tunnel, as my


hon. Friend probably knows, was constructed by the education authorities at their own expense and the northern access actually comes up in the school grounds. If, however, the education authorities were willing that the public should use the tunnel, we should certainly be prepared to make any necessary adjustments and to pay our share of the cost of maintenance. The best thing to do to find out the position is to ask our divisional road engineer to get in touch with the local education authority to see what it thinks about the possibility of allowing the public to use the tunnel.
Then there is the main question raised by my hon. Friend concerning the speed limit, which he has particularly stressed. I have noted in this connection what he has said about the view of the local police and this, of course, weighs heavily with us. Unfortunately, however, we have to look at problems of speed limits not only from the local angle, but also from the national point of view. We have to try to attain a measure of consistency in our treatment of the problem in different parts of the country.
I am sure that both my hon. Friend and the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich know that the Ipswich-Martlesham road does not really fit into the character either

of a 30 or a 40 m.p.h. speed limit. It is mainly rural in character and development, where it exists, is generally set back from the road. There are adequate footpaths and wide verges. In short, it is not the kind of road on which a driver would expect to find a 40 m.p.h. speed limit. If such a speed limit were imposed on this road, it would tend to be disregarded and make no real contribution to road safety. To impose a speed limit in such conditions would debase the value of speed limits generally throughout the country by bringing them into disrepute.
In such circumstances, we think it better that the driver himself should be the judge of what speed is safe and that he should regulate his speed according to the traffic conditions. Measurement of speeds which has been carried out has not disclosed any widespread tendency towards excessive speed, nor is the accident record, a fact that should interest both hon. Members, out of line with that of A.12 generally

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at ten minutes to Eleven o'clock.